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Orations and Addresses. 



BY 



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WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 




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NEW YORK : 4 
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS. 

Fourth Avenue and Twenty-third Street. 
1873. 



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.01 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by 

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



MIDDLETON & CO., "STEREOTYPERS, 



Lange, Little & Hillman, 

PRINTEns, 



BRIDGEPORT, CONN. mg ^o 114 WoosTKK Street, N. Y. 



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CONTENTS 



PAGE 

lOMAS COLE I 

FENNIMORE COOPER 43 

WASHINGTON IRVING 93 

EITZ-GREENE HALLECK i55 

GULIAN CROMMELIN VERPLANCK '. 195 

THE PRESS BANQUET TO KOSSUTH , . . . . 259 

THE IMPROVEMENT OF NATIVE FRUITS 267 

MUSIC IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS 283 

SCHILLER 293 

A BIRTH-DAY 303 

FREEDOM OF EXCHANGE. 313 

THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH 323 

THE METROPOLITAN ART MUSEUM 331 

THE MERCANTILE LIBRARY 343 

ITALIAN UNITY .... 351 

THE MORSE STATUE .. 359 

SHAKSPEARE 369 

REFORM 379 

SCOTT STATUE 387 



7/ 



COMMEMORATIVE ORATIONS. 



THOMAS COLE 



THOMAS COLE. 

A FUNERAL ORATION, DELIVERED BEFORE THE NATIONAL 
ACADEMY OF DESIGN, NEW YORK, MAY 4, 1848. 

Gentlemen of the Academy : 

We who were not permitted to see our friend 
laid in his grave, and to pay his remains the last 
tokens of respect before they were forever removed* 
from our sight, are assembled to pass a few moments 
in speaking of his genius and his virtues. He was 
one of the founders of the Academy whose members 
I address, as well as one of its most illustrious orna- 
ments. During the entire space which has elapsed 
since the first of its exhibitions, nearly a quarter of a 
century, I am not sure that there was a single year 
in which his works did not appear on its walls ; to 
have missed them would have made us feel that the 
collection was incomplete. Yet we shall miss them 
hereafter ; that skilful hand is at rest forever. His 
departure has left a vacuity which amazes and alarms 
us. It is as if the voyager on the Hudson were to 
look toward the great range of the Catskills, at the 



2 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

foot of which Cole, with a reverential fondness, had 
fixed his abode, and were to see that the grandest 
of its summits had disappeared — had sunk into the 
plain from our sight. I might use a bolder simili- 
tude ; it is as if we were to look over the heavens 
on a starlight evening and find that one of the 
greater planets, Hesperus or Jupiter, had been blot- 
ted from the sky. 

When the good who are not distinguished by 
any intellectual greatness die, we regard their end 
as something in the ordinary course of nature. A 
harmless life we say has closed ; there is one fewer 
of the kindly spirits whom we were accustomed to 
meet in our path ; — and save in the little circle of his 
nearest friends, the sole feeling is that of a gentle re- 
gret. The child dies, and we think of it as a blos- 
som transplanted to brighter gardens ; another springs 
and blooms in its place ; the youth and maiden depart 
in their early promise, the old man at the close of his 
tasks, and leave no space which is not soon filled. 
But when to great worth is united great genius ; when 
the mind of their possessor is so blended with the 
public mind as to form much of its strength and 
grace, his removal by death, in the strength and ac- 
tivity of his faculties, affects us with a sense of vio- 
lence and loss ; we feel that the great fabric of which 



THOMAS COLE. 3 

we form a part is convulsed and shattered by it. It 
is like wrenching out by the roots the ivy which has 
overgrown and beautifies and upholds some ancient 
structure of the Old World, and has sent its fibres 
deep within its masonry ; the wall is left a shapeless 
mass of loosened stones. 

For Cole was not only a great artist but a great 
teacher ; the contepiplation of his works made men 
better. It is said of one of the old Italian painters, 
that he never began a painting without first offering 
a prayer. The paintings of Cole are of that nature 
that it hardly transcends the proper use of language 
to call them acts of religion. Yet do they never strike 
us as strained or forced in character ; they teach but 
what rose spontaneously in the mind of the artist ; they 
I were the sincere communications of his own moral 
and intellectual being. One of the most eminent 
among the modern German painters, Overbeck, is re- 
markable for the happiness with which he has caught 
the devotional manner of the old ecclesiastical paint- 
ers, blending it with his own more exquisite knowl- 
edge of art, and shedding it over forms of fairer sym- 
metry. Yet has he not escaped a certain mannerism ; 
the air of submissive awe, the manifest consciousness 
of a superior presence, which he so invariably be- 
stows on all his personages, becomes at last a matter 



4 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

of repetition and circumscribes his walk to a narrow 
circle. With Cole it was otherwise ; his mode of 
treating his subjects was not bounded by the narrow 
limits of any system ; the moral interest he gave 
them took no set form or predetermined pattern ; its 
manifestations wore the diversity of that creation 
from which they were drawn. 

Let me ask those who hear me to accompany me 
in a brief review of his life and his principal works. 

Thomas Cole was born in the year 1802, at Bol- 
ton, in Lancashire, England. He came to this coun- 
try with his family when sixteen years of age. He 
regarded himself, however, as an American, and 
claimed the United States as the country of his rela- 
tives. His father passed his youth here, and his 
grandfather, I have heard him say, lived the greater 
part of his life in the United States. 

After a short stay in Philadelphia, the family re- 
moved to Steubenville, in Ohio. Cole was early in 
the habit of amusing himself with drawing, observant 
of the aspect of nature and fond of remarking the 
varieties of scenery. An invincible diffidence led him 
to avoid society and to wander alone in woods and 
solitudes, where he found that serenity which forsook 
him in the company of his fellows. He took long 
rambles in the forests along the banks of the Ohio, 



THOMAS COLE. 5 

on which Stenbenville is situated, and acquired that 
love of walking which continued through life. His 
first drawings were imitated from the designs on 
English chinaware ; he then copied engravings, and 
tried engraving, in a very rude way we must presume, 
both on wood and copper. In 1820, when the artist 
was eighteen years of age, a portrait painter named 
Stein, came to Steubenville, who lent him an English 
work on drawing, treating of design, composition and 
color. The study of this work seems not only to 
have given him an idea of the principles of the art, 
but to have revealed to him in some sort the extraor- 
dinary powers that were slumbering within him. He 
read it again and again with the greatest eagerness ; 
it became his constant companion, and he resolved to 
be a painter. He provided himself with a palette, 
pencils and colors, and after one or two experi- 
ments in portrait painting, which were pi'onounced 
satisfactory, left his father's house on foot one Febru- 
ary morning, on a tour through some of the principal 
villages of Ohio. From St. Clairsville, which he first 
reached, he wandered to Zanesville, from Zanesville 
to Chillicothe, and finally, after an absence of several 
months, during which he painted but few pictures, 
and experienced many hardships and discourage- 
ments, returned to Steubenville no richer than when 



6 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

he left it. In one of these journeys, that from Zanes- 
ville to ChiUicothe, he walked sixty miles in a single 
day. 

The family afterwards removed to Pittsburgh, 
and here, on the banks of the Monongahela, in the 
year 1823, he first struck into the path which led 
him to excellence and renown. The country about 
Pittsburgh is uncommonly beautiful, a region of hills 
and glens, rich meadows and noble forests, and 
charming combinations of wood and water, and great 
luxuriance and variety of vegetation. After the hour 
of nine in the morning, he was engaged in a manu- 
factory established by his father, but until that time 
he was abroad, studying the aspect of the country, 
and for the first time making sketches from nature. 
Before the buds began to open, he drew the leafless 
trees, imitated the disposition of the boughs and 
twigs, and as the leaves came forth, studied and 
copied the various characters of foliage. I may date 
from this period the birth of his practical skill as a 
landscape painter, though I have little doubt that in 
his earlier wanderings on the banks of the Ohio, and 
perhaps in his still earlier rambles in the fields of 
Lancashire, he had cherished the close inspection 
of nature, and unconsciously laid up in his memory 
treasures of observation, from which he afterwards 



THOMAS COLE. 7 

drew liberally, when long practice had given him the 
ready hand and the power of throwing upon the 
canvas at pleasure the images that rose and lived in 
his mind. In no part of the world where painting 
is practised as an art, does the forest vegetation pre- 
sent so great a variety as here ; and of that variety 
Cole seemed a perfect master. I see in his delinea- 
tions of trees a robust vigor of hand which leaves 
nothing to desire, and a diversity of character which 
seems to me almost boundless. Of this mastery 
and variety the picture which bears the name of the 
Mountain Home, one of his later works, is a remark- 
able example. 

The business in which his father had engaged 
proved unsuccessful ; it was abandoned, and late in 
the autumn of 1823 Cole took his departure for Phil- 
adelphia, with the design of trying his fortune in that 
city. The winter which followed was a winter of 
hardship and suffering, the particulars of which are 
related with some minuteness in Dunlap's book on 
American Artists. But he had youth on his side, and 
the hopes of youth, and a good constitution, and an 
unconquerable determination to excel, without which 
no artist ever became great. Between that deter- 
mination and his acute sensitiveness there must have 
been many a hard conflict, but it prevailed. He 



8 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

obtained permission to draw at the Pennsylvania 
Academy of the Fine Arts, received some trifling 
commissions, struggled through that winter and the 
next, and in the spring of 1824 joined his family, 
who had now removed to New York. 

It was here that the public were first made ac- 
quainted with his merits, and that the day of his fame 
first dawned upon him. He had painted several 
landscapes, which were placed in a shop for sale. 
One of them was purchased by Mr. Bruen, an hon- 
orary member of this Academy, for a small sum, but 
the purchaser was so much delighted with it, that he 
immediately sought the acquaintance of the artist, and 
furnished him with the means of studying and copy- 
ing the scenery of the Hudson. Three pictures 
were produced by him in the summer of 1824, which 
were exposed for sale at the price of twenty-five 
dollars each. They were purchased by three artists, 
— I mention the fact with great pleasure, — three 
artists who generously and cordially acknowledged 
their merit, and continued ever after his friends — 
Trumbull, Dunlap, and Durand. " This youth," 
said Trumbull, when he saw them, " has done what 
I have all my life attempted in vain." 

Two of the pictures of which I am speaking are 
in the exhibition opened for the benefit of his family 



THOMAS COLE. 9 

since his death.' They are not equal to his later 
works, but they are skilful, faithful and original, and 
these qualities, once pointed out, made them the sub- 
ject of general admiration. 

In one of the earlier editions of his poem entitled 
The Vanity of Human Wishes, Johnson thus enumer- 
ates the calamities incident to the life of a scholar : 

Toil, envy, want, the garret and the jail. 

Afterwards, when he had experienced what it was to 
possess a patron, he changed the line to 

Toil, envy, vi'ant, 'Cos. patron and the jail. 

Men of letters in the present age have luckily 
little to do with patrons ; the community is their 
patron ; the more general diffusion of education and 
of the habit of reading enables the man of decided 
literary talent to obtain from the people surer and 
more constant rewards than he formerly received from 
the bounty of the great. The painter, however, ad- 
dresses himself to a taste much less generally cul- 
tivated than that of reading, and the works of his art 
are not, like books, in the power of every man to 
purchase and possess. He is therefore by no means 
secure from the misfortune of patronage. 

It was the fate of Cole, at this period of his life, 



lO ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

to meet with a patron. When his pictures first at- 
tracted the pubhc attention, as I have ah-eady related, 
a dashing EngUshman, since known as the author of 
a wretched book about the United States, who had 
married the heiress of an opulent American family, 
professed to take a warm interest in the young painter, 
and charged himself with the task of advancing his 
fortunes. He invited him to pass the winter at his 
house, on his estate in the country, and engaged him 
to paint a number of landscapes, for which he was to 
pay him twenty or thirty dollars each, a trifling com- 
pensation for such works as Cole could even then 
produce, but which I have no doubt, seemed to him 
at that time munificent. It would hardly become 
the place or the occasion were I to relate the particu- 
lars of the treatment which the artist received from 
his patron, the miserable and cheerless apartments 
he assigned him, the supercilious manner by which 
he endeavored to drive him from his table to take his 
meals with the children of the family, and the general 
disrespect of his demeanor. These would have been 
a sufficient motive with Cole to leave the place imme- 
diately, but for the apprehension that his kind friends 
in New York, who had taken so strong an interest 
in his success, might ascribe this step to an incon- 
stant temper, or to a character morbidly jealous of its 



THOMAS COLE. II 

dignity. He imposed upon himself, therefore, though 
deeply hurt and offended, the penance of remaining, 
labored assiduously at his easel, and executed sev- 
eral pictures which justified the high opinion his 
New York friends entertained of his genius. Fortu- 
nately, for a considerable part of the winter, he was 
relieved of the presence of his patron, who went to 
pass his time in the amusements of a neighbor- 
ing city. 

As early as he could finish the pictures on which 
he was engaged, he quitted the roof of the English- 
man, and returned to New York without payment 
for what he had done. Some time afterwards he 
compromised with this encourager of youthful genius, 
accepted half the compensation originally stipulated, 
and relinquished his claim to the remainder. 

The works executed by Cole during this winter 
were sent by his generous patron as presents to his 
friends ; they were samples of the talent which he 
had discovered, cherished and rewarded. One of the 
paintings in the present exhibition, is said to belong 
to this period of the artist's life. It is numbered 8i 
in the collection — a wild mountain scene, where a 
bridge of two planks crosses a chasm, through which 
flows a mountain stream. It has not the boldness 
and frankness, the assured touch, of his later produc- 



12 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

tions, but it is full of beauty. There are the moun- 
tain summits, unmistakably American, with their in- 
finity of tree-tops, a beautiful management of light, 
striking forms of trees and rocks in the foreground, 
and a certain lucid darkness in the waters below. 
The whole shows that Cole, amidst the discomfort 
and vexations which surrounded him, suffered no de- 
pression of his faculties, and that "the vision of what 
he had observed in external nature came to him, 
in all its beauty, and remained with him until his 
pencil had transferred it to the canvas. 

There had been no necessity of providing Cole 
with a patron. The public had already learned to 
admire his works under the guidance of those who 
were esteemed the best judges, and their attention 
being once gained, his success was certain. From 
that time he had a fixed reputation, and was number- 
ed among the men of whom our country had reason 
to be proud. I well remember what an enthusiasm 
was awakened by these early works of his, inferior as 
I must deem them to his maturer productions, — the 
l/delight which was expressed at the opportunity of 
contemplating pictures which carried the eye over 
i scenes of wild grandeur peculiar to our country, over 
Vour aerial mountain-tops with their mighty growth of 
forest never touched by the axe, along the banks of 



THOMAS COLE. 1 3 

streams never deformed by culture, and into the depth 
of skies bright with the hues of our own cUmate ; 
skies sucli as few but Cole could ever paintj and 
through the transparent abysses of which it seemed 
that you might send an arrow out of sight. 

In 1825 the National Academy of the Arts of 
Design was founded. This great enterprise, for such 
I must call it, was principally effected by the exer- 
tions of one who has since been lost to art, though 
translated perhaps, so far as the mere material inter- 
ests of society are concerned, to a sphere of greater 
usefulness. I may speak of him, therefore, as an acade- 
mician, as freely as if he had departed this life. In 
establishing the Academy he met with many obsta- 
cles and discouragements, but they gave way before 
his ingenuity and perseverance. " Do you know," 
said a friend of mine, scarce less highly endowed as 
a connoisseur than as a man of letters ; " do you 
know what Morse is doing among the artists .'' He 
has made them lay aside their jealousies, and forget 
their quarrels ; he has inspired them with a desire to 
raise their profession to its proper dignity, and has 
united them into an association for the purpose." 

At that time the New York Academy of the Fine 
Arts was in existence ; it had Colonel Trumbull with 
his great reputation at its head, and numbered among 



14 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

its members nearly all the men of wealth in New 
York, who desired to be regarded as friends of the 
fine arts. The new association of artists, not satis- 
fied with the manner in which it was conducted, nor 
with the opportunities it afforded to pupils, asked that 
a certain number of artists should be placed in the 
board of its directors. This demand, after some ne- 
gotiation, was refused, and Morse led his band of 
artists boldly to the conflict with the old Academy and 
its opulent patrons. They founded the Academy of 
the Arts of Design, governed solely by artists ; ap- 
pealed from the patronage of the few to the general 
judgment of the community, and triumphed. The 
barren exhibitions of the old Academy, with their 
large proportion of casts and pictures which had 
been seen again and again, were deserted for the 
brilliant novelties offered by the new, and finally the 
elder of the two rivals expired by a death so easy 
and unnoticed, that few, I suspect, now recollect the 
date of its dissolution. 

The Academy of Design meanwhile has gone on 
with a constant increase of prosperity, presenting 
from year to year richer and more creditable exhibi- 
tions, though some, who have been rendered fastidi- 
ous by what they have learned from these very exhi- 
bitions, absurdly maintain the contrary ; it has gone 



THOMAS COLE. 1 5 

on with an increasing revenue, till it is able not only 
to support an excellent school for the instruction of 
pupils of both sexes, but to pension the widows of 
the academicians. 

Let me say a word or two concerning the artist 
I have just named, for many years the president of 
this institution, and worthy to stand at the head of 
an association of which Cole was a member. He 
possessed in a high degree all the learning and 
knowledge of his art. The bent of his genius was 
towards historical painting, in which various circum- 
stances — want of encouragement was the principal 



— prevented him from taking that rank to which he 
might otherwise have raised himself He was em- 
barrassed somewhat by another obstacle ; the turn 
of his mind was experimental, a quality more fortu- 
nate for a scientific discoverer than an artist, and he (^ ' t^ 
boldly trusted himself to new paths, in which per- ^ 
haps he sometimes lost his way. Yet from time to 
time he would astonish the world with glimpses of 
the great powers which he possessed, and which 
only needed opportunity and steady exercise to ma- 
ture them into their due strength and excellence. 
" I know what is in him," said the great Allston, 
in a letter to Dunlap, " better, perhaps, than any 
one else. If he will only bring out all that is 



1 6 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

there, he will show powers that many now do not 
dream of." 

In that fraternity of artists which founded the 
Academy, was another man of genius who began his 
career almost at the same moment with Cole, and 
who closed it in death two or three years earlier. 
Inman, the first vice-president of the institution, was 
a portrait painter of extraordinary merit, great facil- 
ity of pencil, a pleasing style of color, and a power 
of happy selection from the various expressions of 
countenance which a sitter brings to the artist. 
The versatility of his powers was surprising : he has 
left behind him specimens of landscape, of figures in 
groups, in repose or in action, which show that he 
might have excelled in any branch of the art. His 
view of Rydal Water, painted for one of our number, 
from a spot near the dwelling of the poet Words- 
worth, is a picture of extreme beauty ; a soft aerial 
scene, like a dream of Paradise ; the little sheet of 
water seems one of the lakes of the Happy Valley, 
and the mountains are like hills of fairy land. He 
was not a man like Cole, to linger long in contempla- 
tion of the objects he would delineate, to study them 
till he had exhausted all they could offer to his ob- 
servation, and till their image became incorporated 
with his mind. What he saw, he saw at a glance, 



THOMAS COLE. 1 7 

and transferred it to the canvass with the same 
rapidity, and with surprising precision. His works 
owe nothing to revision, and possess a certain unla- 
bored grace which makes us delight in reverting to 
them. 

With such men, and others worthy to be their 
colleagues, Cole was associated in the early days of 
the Academy. At its first exhibition, in 1826, he 
contrib.uted a snow-piece, not one of his most re- 
markable works, perhaps, but bearing the charac- 
teristics of his manner. He now received frequent 
commissions, and somewhat more than two years 
later, near the close of 1828, was enabled to gratify 
a desire which all artists feel with more or less^-^ 
strength, to visit Europe. He went first to Eng- 
land, where our countryman Cooper received him 
with kindness, and introduced him to the poet 
Rogers, who took much interest in him, and gave 
him a commission for a picture. The great portrait 
painter, Lawrence, behaved to him in a most friendly 
manner, but he died not long after his arrival. His 
residence in England does not seem to have been 
favorable to his serenity of mind. He complained 
of the gloom of the climate, accustomed as he had 
been, ever since he became an artist, to our brilliant 
skies, and the almost superabundant light of our 



1 8 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

atmosphere ; and he was much affected by the cold- 
ness of the English artists, who saw nothing in his 
pictures to commend. Turner, with his splendid 
faults, his undeniable mastery in some respects, and 
his egregious defiance of nature in others, had taken 
possession of the public taste, and it was no easy 
matter for so true a painter as Cole, unsupported by 
the favorable testimony of those who were recog- 
nized by the public as judges of art, to obtain for his 
works an impartial consideration. He sent pictures 
to the public exhibitions in London for two succes- 
sive seasons, and, though the subjects were Ameri- 
can, they were hung in such situations that even his 
friends, familiar with his manner, could not distin- 
guish them for his. 

In May, 183 1, he left England for Paris, hoping to 
be able to study awhile at the Louvre ; but at that 
time its walls were covered with an exhibition of mod- 
ern French paintings, of which he liked neither the 
subjects nor the treatment, and he proceeded imme- 
diately to Italy. It appears from a letter of his to 
Dunlap, that even after his arrival in that country, he 
found it hard to shake off the depression of spirits 
which kept possession of him during his residence in 
England. It left him, however, and he speaks with 
delight of his sojourn in Plorence, which he calls the 



THOMAS COLE. 1 9 

painter's paradise. He studied the noble collections 
of art which it contains, drew sedulously from life, 
and executed his Sunset on the Arno, and several 
other works. Many of those who hear me will prob- 
bly recollect this picture, a fine painting, with the 
river gleaming in the middle ground, the dark woods 
of the Cascine on the right, and above, in the dis- 
tance, the mountain summits half dissolved in the 
vapory splendor which belongs to an Italian sunset. 

From Florence he went to Rome, where he had 
his studio in a house once occupied by Claude. He 
seems to have studied the remarkable and beautiful 
country in the neighborhood of the eternal city, scat- 
tered with ruins, and the fine effects of the Roman 
climate, even more than the objects contained in its 
magnificent repositories of art. Here he made 
sketches from which he afterwards painted some of 
his best pictures. Naples attracted him further south, 
and from Naples he made an excursion to Paestum. 
He used to relate that as he was preparing for a visit 
to the solitary templps, which are a,ll that is left of 
that ancient city, he happened to speak of his design 
in presence of an Englishman who had just returned 
from them. " Why do you go to Paestum } " said the 
Englishman ; "you will see nothing there but a few 
old buildings." He went, however, saw the old 



-20 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

buildings, the grandest and most perfect remains of 
the architecture of Greece, standing 

" between tlie mountains and the sea," 



in a spot where, in the beautiful words of the same 
poet, 

" The air is sweet with violets running wild," 

but which the pestilential climate has made a desert ; 
he saw and painted a view of them for an American 
lady. 

While in Italy, the manner of Cole underwent a 
considerable change ; a certain timid soft ness of ma n- 
ngr — in comparison I mean with his later style — was 
laid aside for that free and robust boldness in imitat- 
ing the effects of nature, which has ever since char- 
acterized his works. I recollect that when his picture 
of the Fountain of Egeria, painted abroad, appeared 
in our exhibition, this change was generally remarked 
and v\^as regretted by many, who preferred the gentle 
beauty of his earlier style, attained by repeated and 
careful touches, and who were half-disposed to wish 
that the artist had never seen the galleries of Europe. 

It seems to me, however, that the transition to 
this bolder manner was the natural consequence of 
his advance in art and of confidence in his own 



THOMAS COLE. 21 

powers, and that it would have taken place if he had 
never seen a picture by the European masters. It is 
not unusual with men of powerful genius in any of 
the fine arts, that their earlier essays are marked with 
a certain graceful indecision, a stopping short of the 
highest effect, on account of some hesitation as to the 
means of producing it, or some fear of the manner in 
which it will be received. From this if they had 
never departed they could never have become great. 
With riper powers, higher skill and a knowledge of 
their own strength, they become impatient of com- 
monplace beauty, and rise by a necessity of their 
nature to a more masculine method of treatment. 
Connoisseurs trace this change in the paintings of 
Raphael ; critics in the poetry of Byron. 

That Cole would have been a great painter if he 
had never studied abroad, scarcely less great on that 
account, no man can doubt. But would he have been 
able to paint some of these pictures which we most 
value and most affectionately admire ; that fine one, ' 
for example, of the Ruins of Aqueducts in the Cam- 
pagna of Rome, with its broad masses of shadow 
dividing the sunshine that bathes the solitary plain 
strown with ruins, its glorious mountains in the dis- 
tance and its silence made visible to the eye .'' Would 
he have ever given us a picture like that which bears 



22 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

the name of The Present, a scene of lonehness, pop- 
ulous with the reminiscences of days gone by ; or a 
picture like that great final one, the Course of Em- 
pire ? XCole owed much to the study of nature in the 
Old World, but very little, I think, to its artists. He 
speaks in his letter of the delight with which he re- 
garded the works of the older painters of Italy, on ac- 
count of their love for the truth of nature, the sim- 
plicity and single-heartedness with which they imita- 
ted it, and their freedom from the constraint of sys- 
tem ; but I see slight traces of anything which he 
could have caught from their manner. He had a bet- 
ter teacher, and copied the works of a greater artist. 

Cole came back to America in 1832, recalled 
somewhat sooner than he wished by the ill health of 
his parents and their desire for his return. Within a 
year or two afterwards, he began the series of large 
pictures, so well known to the public under the name 
of the Course of Empire. I shall not weary those 
who hear me with any particular description of these 
paintings, which are among the most remarkable and 
characteristic of his works. The subject is finely 
conceived, and though the execution of each is not 
equal, they have all some peculiar excellence. The 
second, representing the pastoral state of mankind, 
ranks among his most pleasing landscapes ; the fifth 



THOMAS COLE. 23 

and last, placing before us the remains of a great city- 
crumbling into earth, reclaimed by nature to nourish 
her vegetation and to furnish herbage for the flock, is 
one of those pictures which Cole only could paint. 
The third is an architectural piece of great splendor, 
with an imposing arrangement of stately structures ; 
the fourth, though the subject was not of that kind 
which he delighted to paint, is full of invention and 
energy, and the struggle between the host of the be- 
siegers and the crowd of the besieged, is given in 
such a manner as to blend simplicity of effect with 
variety of detail. " I have been engaged ever sin ce 
I saw you," said he in a letter to one of his friends, 
" in sacking and burning a city, and I am well nigh 
tired of such horrid work. I did believe it was my 
best picture, but I took it down stairs to-day and got 
rid of the notion." 

The Course of Empire, I find on looking over 
some of his letters, was not completed till 1836. It 
was painted for one of the most generous and judi- 
cious friends of art whom the country ever had, Lu- 
man Reed, who died before the artist had finished 
the series. 

It was while he was thus engaged that he married 
and fixed his residence at Catskill, in a region singu- 
lar for its romantic beauty, where the remainder of 



24 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

his life was as happy as domestic harmony, his own 
gentle and genial temper, and the love of those by 
whom he was surrounded, could make it. His ge- 
nius had grown prolific as it ripened ; and in this 
charming retreat he executed some of his noblest 
works. Among these I must class the Departure 
and Return, produced in 1837. There could not be 
a finer choice of circumstances nor a more exquisite 
treatment of them than is found in these pictures. 
In the first, a spring morning, breezy and sparkling, 
the mists starting and soaring from the hills ; the 
chieftain in gallant array at the head of his retainers, 
issuing from the castle — in the second, an autumnal 
evening, calm, solemn, a church illuminated by the 
beams of the setting sun, and the corpse of the chief 
borne in silence towards the consecrated place — 
these are but a meagre epitome of what is contained 
in these two pictures. In both, the figures are ex- 
tremely well managed, though in this respect he was 
not always so fortunate, nor did his strength lie in 
that direction. The two works which he named the 
Past and Present, produced in the year following, 
have scarcely less merit as a whole ; the latter of 
them is one of those pictures, rich, solemn, full of 
matter for study and reflection, in producing which 
Cole had no rival. 



THOMAS COLE. 2$ 

In 1840 he completed another series of large 
paintings, called the Voyage of Life, of simpler and 
less elaborate design than the Course of Empire, but 
more purely imaginative. The conception of the se- 
ries is a perfect poem. The child, under the care of 
its guardian angel, in a boat heaped with buds and 
flowers, floating down a stream which issues from the 
shadowy cavern of the past and flows between banks 
bright with flowers and the beams of the rising sun ; 
the youth, with hope in his gesture and aspect, tak- 
ing command of the helm, while his winged guardian 
watches him anxiously from the shore; the mature 
man, hurried onward by the perilous rapids and ed- 
dies of the river ; the aged navigator, who has reach- 
ed, in his frail and now idle bark, the mouth of the 
stream, and is just entering the great ocean which 
lies before him in mysterious shadow, set before us 
the different stages of human life under images of 
which every beholder admits the beauty and deep 
significance. The second of this series, with the 
rich luxuriance of its foreground, its pleasant declivi- 
ties in the distance, and its gorgeous but shadowy 
structures in the piled clouds, is one of the most 
popular of Cole's compositions. 

About this time Cole thought of painting Medora 
watching for the return of the Corsair, as related. in 



26 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

Byron's poem, for a gentleman who had commission- 
ed a picture, but who, after some reflection and dis- 
cussion with his friends, abandoned the subject and 
adopted in its place one suggested by this stanza 
in Coleridge's admirable little poem of Love : — 



" She leaned against the armed man, 
The statue of the armed knight ; 
She stood and listened to my harp 
Amid the lingering light." 



This picture remains, I am told, among the things 
which he left unfinished at his death. Another work 
produced in 1840 was the Architect's Dream, an as- 
semblage of structures, Egyptian, Grecian, Gothic, 
Moorish, such as might present itself to the imagina- 
tion of one who had fallen asleep after reading a 
work on the different styles of architecture. The 
subject was in a measure forced upon him by the im- 
portunity of an architect, who seems to have imag- 
ined that he was able to give Cole some important 
hints in his art, and desired a work which should 
combine " history and landscape and the architect- 
ure of different styles and ages." The painter, good- 
naturedly, attempted to accommodate his genius to 
this caprice, but the picture produced did not satisfy 
the architect, who probably had no distinct idea of 



THOMAS COLE. 2/ 

what he wanted, and who intimated his wish that 
Cole should try again. Cole wrote back in some dis- 
pleasure, offering to return such compensation as he 
had received and to consider the commission as at 
an end. This I suppose, was done, as the picture 
is in the possession of one of the painter's rela- 
tives. 

In July, 1 841, Cole sailed on a second visit to 
Europe. On this occasion he travelled much in 
Switzerland, which he had never before seen, linger- 
ing as long as the limits of the time he had pre- 
scribed to himself would allow him in that remark- 
able country, and filling his mind with its wonders of 
beauty and grandeur. From Switzerland he passed 
to Italy, whence he made an excursion to the island 
of Sicily, with the scenery of which he was greatly 
delighted. On its bold rocky summits and in its 
charming valleys he found everywhere scattered the 
remains of a superb architecture, and gazed without 
satiety upon the luxuriance of its vegetation in which 
the plants of the tropics spring intermingled with 
those of temperate climes. In his letters, written 
from this island, he speaks with an enthusiastic de- 
light of the abundance of flowers with which the 
waste places were enlivened : flowers which here we 
cultivate assiduously in our gardens, but which are 



28 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

shed profusely over the wildernesses .of ancient but 
almost depopulated Sicily. 

One of his pictures — I might place it among his 
earlier works, for it was painted before his first visit 
to Europe — strikingly illustrates the great delight he 
took in flowers. Some of those who hear me will 
doubtless recollect his picture of the Garden of Eden. 
In this work he attempted what was almost beyond 
the power of the pencil, a representation of the 
bloom and brightness which poets attribute to the 
abode of man in a state of innocence. In the dis- 
tance were gleaming waters, and winding valleys, 
and bowers on the gentle slopes of the hills ; but 
nearer, in the foreground, the painter has lavished 
upon the garden a profusion of bloom, and hidden 
the banks and oppressed the shrubs with a weight of 
" flowers of all hues," as Milton calls these orna- 
ments of his Paradise. A single flower, or a group 
of several, may be very well managed by the artist, 
but when he attempts to portray an expanse of 
bloom, a whole landscape, or any large portion of it, 
overspread and colored by them, we feel the imper- 
fection of the instruments he is obliged to use, and 
are disappointed by the want of vividness in the im- 
pression he strives to create. The Eden of Cole has 
great merits as a scene of tranquil beauty, but there 



THOMAS COLE. 29 

was that in its design to which the power of the pen- 
cil was not adequate. 

He saw other things, however, in Sicily. The 
aspect of Mount Etna seemed to have taken a strong 
hold on his imagination. Several views of it have 
been given by his pencil, one of which is in the exhi- 
bition of his works now open. A still larger one 
was painted by him some time after his return, which 
presented a nearer view of the mountain filling the 
greater part of the canvas with its huge cone. It 
was completed in a very few days, and was a miracle 
of rapid and powerful execution. It was not so gen- 
erally admired as many of his works, and no doubt 
had in it some of the imperfections of haste ; but for 
my part I never stood before it without feeling that 
sense of elevation and enlargement with which we 
look upon huge and lofty mountains in nature. With 
me, at least, the artist had succeeded in producing 
the effect at which he aimed. I have no doubt that 
he painted it with a mind full of the greatness of the , 
subject, with a feeling of sublime awe produced by 
the image of that mighty mountain, the summit of 
which is white with perpetual snow, while the slopes 
around its base are basking in perpetual summer, 
and on whose peak the sunshine yet lingers, while 
the valleys at its foot lie in the evening twilight. 



30 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

Of course he passed some time at Rome in his 
second visit to Europe. In this old capital he pro- 
duced a duplicate of the Voyage of Life. Thor- 
waldsen came to visit him. " These pictures," said 
the illustrious Dane, " are something wholly new in 
art. They are highly poetical in conception, and ad- 
mirable in their execution." 

In August, 1842, Cole returned to his family in 
Catskill 

In 1844 died Verbryck, one of the younger mem- 
bers of the Academy. He sleeps among the forest 
trees of Greenwood Cemetery, in a lowly spot chosen 
by himself, before his death, which would not attract 
your attention if you were not looking for it. There 
the grave of the modest and amiable artist is decked 
with flowering plants, set and tended by hands which 
perform the pious office when no one observes them. 
He was a painter of much promise, with a strong en- 
thusiasm for his art and earnest meditation on its 
principles, but he was withheld by a feebleness of con- 
stitution from doing what his genius, if seconded by a 
more robust physical nature, would have given him 
the power to do. His productions, for the most part, 
have in them a shadow of sadness, as if darkened by 
the contemplation of that early fate which he knew 
to impend over him, and which took him away from 



THOMAS COLE. 3 1 

a life that seemed to give him everything worth Hv- 
ing for. 

It was not long before his death that in landing 
at Brooklyn from one of the ferry-boats, I met Cole, 
who said to me, " I have just paid a visit to Verbryck 
and looked over his sketches with him, in order that 
he might select one from which I am to paint a pic- 
ture for a friend of his." On further conversation I 
found that a picture had been ordered of Verbryck, 
and the money advanced for it by the gentleman who 
is now president of the New York Gallery, and who 
knows how to be munificent without ostentation. At 
the time the commission was given, Verbryck hesi- 
tated at taking it, on account of the precarious state 
of his health, but Cole, who took great interest both 
in his personal character and his genius, advised him 
to accept it, and promised that if what he feared 
should come to pass, he would paint the picture in his 
stead. The dying artist we may suppose, was uneasy 
that he could not perform his engagement, and Cole 
had delicately renewed his offer. Verbryck selected 
a sketch of a quiet rural scene, such as might nat- 
urally be preferred by one in whose veins the powers 
of life were feebly struggling against disease, whose 
frame was languid while his blood was fevered, and to 
whom a serene and healthful repose would appear the 



32 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

most desirable of all conditions. This picture was 
afterwards executed, and forms the seventh in the 
collection now open to the public. It has no partic- 
ular advantage of subject; — a winding river, the 
Thames, flows tranquilly between sloping banks of 
green, and groups of trees overlook the waters. Yet 
it is painted with great care, for Cole was not a man 
to perform this act of piety in a slight and hurried 
manner ; and the admirable disposition of objects and 
the perfect truth with which they are rendered, make 
it a work on which the eye dwells long without being 
weary. It is much prized by the owner, by whom it 
is regarded, I presume, as a memorial, not only of 
Cole's genius but of his goodness, and of that friend- 
ship between the two artists, which, interrupted for a 
brief space, is now doubtless renewed in another life. 
Cole had never wrought with greater vigor nor 
after nobler conceptions than in the years which imme- 
diately preceded the close of his life. The admiration 
for his works, which I think had somewhat declined 
after his second visit to Europe, had revived. Such 
pictures as the Mountain Home, the Mountain Ford, 
the Arch of Nero, and many others, had recalled it in 
all its original fervor. A certain negligence of detail 
has been objected to some of Cole's works, produced 
in the maturity of his genius, but I have seen an artist, 



THOMAS COLE. 33 

a painter of American landscapes, whose name will 
rank among those of the first landscape painters of 
the age, stand before the Arch of Nero, unable to 
find words for the full expression of that admiration 
with which he regarded the perfection of its parts, 
and the easy and happy dexterity with which they 
were rendered to the eye. 

His last great work was the unfinished series of 
the Cross and the World, in which, as in many of his 
previous works, he sought to exemplify his favorite 
position „ fhat landscape painting was capable of the 
deepest moral interest and deserved to stand second 
to no other department of the art. Three only of the 
five pictures of which it was to be composed are fin- 
ished, and in these we know not what changes in 
design or execution might have been made, had he 
lived to complete and harmonize every part of the 
design ; but that design is one of singular grandeur, 
and was capable, in his hands, of a noble execution. 

To the second picture in this series I might object 
that it makes the life of the good man too much a life 
of pain, difficulty and danger. The path of his Pil- 
grim of the Cross is over steeps and precipices, in- 
terrupted by fearful chasms, amidst darkness and 
tempest, and torrents that threaten to sweep him from 
his footing, with no resting places of innocent re- 



34 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

freshment nor intervals of secure and easy passage 
after the first asperities of the way are overcome. 
The most ascetic of those who have written on tlie 
Christian life hardly go this length. Even Bunyan 
provides for his Pilgrim the Delectable Mountains, 
and the fruitful and pleasant land of Beulah, and the 
hospitable entertainments of the House of the Inter- 
preter. But in the third of the series I acknowledge 
a power of genius which makes me, for the moment, 
fully assent to Cole's idea of the dignity of his depart- 
ment of the art. That Pilgrim arrived at the end of 
his journey on the summit of the mountain, that inef- 
fable glory in the heavens before which he kneels, the 
luminous path over the enkindled clouds leading up- 
ward to it, the mountain height shooting with verdure 
under the beams of that celestial day, the darkness 
sullenly recoiling on either side, the ethereal messen- 
gers sent to conduct the wayfarer to his rest, form 
altogether a picture which could only have been pro- 
duced by a mind of vast creative power quickened 
by a fervid poetic inspiration. The idea is Miltonic, 
said a friend when he first beheld it. It is Miltonic ; 
it is worthy to be ranked with the noblest conceptions 
of the great religious epic poet of the world. 

It was while he was engaged in painting this se- 
ries that the summons of death came. An inflam- 



THOMAS COLE. 35 

mation of the lungs, a sudden and brief illness, closed 
his life on the 13th of February. On the third day 
after the attack he despaired of recovery and began 
to make preparations for death. The close of his life 
was like the rest of it, serene and peaceful, and he 
passed into that next stage of existence, from which 
we are separated by such slight and frail barriers, 
with unfaltering confidence in the divine goodness, 
like a docile child guided by the kindly hand of a 
parent, suffering itself to be led without fear into the 
darkest places. 

His death was widely lamented. How we were 
startled by the first news of it, which we refused to 
believe — it came so suddenly, when we knew that a 
few days before he was in his highest vigor of body 
and mind, resolutely laboring on great projects of 
art, and we looked forward to a long array of years 
for one who lived so wisely, and for whom so splendid 
a destiny on earth seemed to be ordained ! On the 
little community in which he lived, the calamity fell 
with a peculiar weight. The day of his funeral was a 
solemn day and a sad one in Catskill ; the shops 
were closed and business was suspended in obedi- 
ence to a common feeling of sorrow. 

For that sorrow there was good cause ; Mor in/ 
Cole there was no disproportion between the cultiva' 



36 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

tion of his moral and that of his intellectual charac- 
ter. He was unspotted by worldly vices, gentle, just, 
beneficent, true, kind to the unfortunate, quick to in- 
terfere when wrong or suffering were inflicted on the 
helpless, whether on his fellow-man or the brute 
creation. His religion, fervently as it was cherished, 
was without ostentation or austerity, not a thing by 
itself, but a sentiment blended and interwoven with 
all the actions of his daily life. His manners were 
cheerful, even playful, and his ready ingenuity was 
employed in various ways to promote the innocent 
amusements of the neighborhood in which he lived. 
I remember asking one of his relatives for some ex- 
amples of his goodness of heart. " His whole life," 
was the reply, " seemed made up of such examples ; 
he never appeared to be in the wrong ; he never did 
anything which gave us offence or caused us regret. 
We delighted to have him always with us ; we were 
sorry whenever he left us and glad when he return- 
ed." He is now gone forth forever ; gone forth to 
gladden his friends no more with his return ; the 
home which was brightened by his presence is des- 
olate ; the sorrow for his absence is perpetual. 

Of his merits as an artist I ought to express an 
opinion with diffidence, standing before )^ou as I do, 
a stammerer among those who speak the true dialect 



THOMAS COLE. 37 

of art. Let me say, however, that to me it seems 
that he is certain to take a higher rank after his death 
than was yielded to him in his life. When I visit the 
collection of his pictures lately made for exhibition ; 
when I see how many great works are before me, and 
think of the many which could not be brought into the 
collection; when I consider with what mastery, (yet 
with what reverence he copied the forms of nature,\ 
and how he blended with them the profoundest hu- 
man sympathies, and made them the vehicle, as God \ 
has made them, of great truths and great lessons,^- 
when I see how directly he learned his art from the 
creation around him, and how resolutely he took his 
own way to greatness, I say within myself, this man 
will be reverenced in future years as a great master 
in art .-' he has opened a way in which only men en- 
dued with rare strength of genius can follow him. 
One of the very peculiarities which has been objected 
to him as a fault, a certain crudeness, as it has been 
called, in the coloring, appears to me a proof of his 
exquisite art. He did not paint for this year or for 
the next, but for centuries to come ; his tints were so 
chosen and applied that he knew they would be har- 
monized by time, and already in several of his paint- 
ings that hoary artist has nearly completed the work 
which the painter left him to do. 



38 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

Reverencing his profession as the instrument of 
good to mankind, Cole pursued it with an assiduity 
which knew no remission. I have heard him say that 
he never wilUngly allowed a day to pass without some 
touch of the pencil. He delighted in hearing old bal- 
lads sung or books read while he was occupied in 
painting, seeming to derive, from the ballad or the 
book, a healthful excitement in the task which em- 
ployed his hand. So accustomed had he grown to 
this double occupation that he would sometimes de- 
sire his female friends to read to him while he was 
writing letters. In the contemplation of nature, how- 
ever, for the purposes of his art, I remember to have 
heard him say that the presence of those who were 
not his familiar friends, disturbed him. To that task 
he surrendered all his faculties, and no man, I sup- 
pose, ever took into his mind a more vivid image of 
what he beheld. His sketches were sometimes but 
the slightest notes of his subject, often unintelligible 
to others, but to him luminous remembrancers from 
which he would afterwards reconstruct the landscape 
with surprising fidelity. He carried to his painting 
room the impressions received by the eye and there 
gave them to the canvas ; he even complained of 
the distinctness with which they haunted him. " Have 
you not found," said he, writing to a distinguished 



THOMAS COLE, 39 

friend — " I have — that you never succeed in painting 
sc'enes, however beautiful, immediately on returning \ 
from them ? I must wait for time to draw a veil over ' 
the common details, the unessential parts, which \ 
shall leave the great features whether the beautiful 
or the sublime, dominant in the mind." 

He could not endure a town life ; he must live in 
the continual presence of rural scenes and objects. 
A country life he believed essential to the cheerful- 
ness of the artist and to a healthful judgment of his 
own works ; in the throng of men he thought that 
the artist was apt to lean too much on the judgment 
of others, and to find their immediate approbation 
necessary to his labors. "^In the retirement of the\ 
country, he held that the simple desire of excellence I 
was likely to act with more strength and less dis- 
turbance, and that its products would be worthier and f 
nobler.V He could not bear that his art should be 
degraded by inferior motives. " I do not mean," said 
he, not long before his death, "to paint any more 
pictures with a direct view to profit." 

There are few, I suppose, who do not recollect 
the lines of Walter Scott, beginning thus : 

" Call it not vain ; they do not err 
"Who say, that when the poet dies, 
Mute nature mourns her worshipper, 
And celebrates his obsequies." 



40 ORATIONS And addresses. 

This is said of the poet ; but the landscape painter is 
admitted to a closer familiarity with nature than the 
poet. He studies her aspect more minutely and 
watches with a more affectionate attention its varied 
expressions. Not one of her forms is lost upon him ; 
not a gleam of sunshine penetrates her green recess- 
es ; not a cloud casts its shadow unobserved by him ; 
every tint of the morning or the evening, of the gray 
or the golden noon, of the near or the remote object 
is noted by his eye and copied by his pencil. All her 
boundless variety of outlines and shades become al- 
most a part of his being and are blended with his 
mind. 

We might imagine, therefore, a sound of lament 
for him whom we have lost in the voices of the 
streams and in the sighs of the wind among the 
groves, and an aspect of sorrow in earth's solitary 
places ; we might dream that the conscious valleys 
miss his accustomed visits, and that the autumnal' 
glories of the woods are paler because of his depart- 
ure. But the sorrow of this occasion is too grave for 
such fancies. Let me say, however, that we feel that 
much is taken away from the charm of nature when 
such a man departs. To us who remain, the region 
of the Catskills, where he wandered and studied and 
sketched, and wrought his sketches into such glo- 



THOMAS COLE. 4I 

rious creations, is saddened by a certain desolate feel- 
ing when we behold it or think of it. The mind that 
we knew was abroad in those scenes of grandeur and 
beauty, and which gave them a higher interest in our 
eyes, has passed from the earth, and we see that 
something of power and greatness is withdrawn from 
the sublime mountain tops and the broad forests and 
the rushing waterfalls. 

Withdrawn I have said — not extinguished, trans- 
lated to a state of larger light, and nobler beauty and 
higher employments of the intellect. It is when I 
contemplate the death of such a man as Cole under 
such circumstances as attended his, that I feel most 
certain of the spirit's immortality. In his case the 
painful problem of old age was not presented, in* 
which the mind sometimes seems to expire before the 
body, and often to wither with the same decline. He 
left us in the mid-strength of his intellect, and his 
great soul, unharmed and unweakened by the disease 
which brought low his frame, amidst the bitter an- 
guish of the loved ones who stood around him, when 
the hour of its divorce from the material organs had 
come, calmly retired behind the veil which hides" 
from us the world of disembodied spirits. 



JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 



JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 

A DISCOURSE ON HIS LIFE, GENIUS AND WRITINGS, DELIV- 
ERED AT METROPOLITAN HALL, NEW YORK, FEBRU- 
ARY 25, 1852. 

It is now somewhat more than a year, since the 
friends of James Fenimore Cooper, in this city, were 
planning to give a public dinner to his honor. It 
was intended as an expression both of the regard they 
bore him personally, and of the pride they took in the 
glory his writings had reflected on the American 
name. We thought of what we should say in his 
hearing ; in what terms, worthy of him and of us, we 
should speak of the esteem in which we held him, and 
of the interest we felt in a fame which had already 
penetrated to the remotest nook of the earth inhab- 
ited by civilized man. 

To-day we assemble for a sadder purpose : to pay 
to the dead some part of the honors then intended for 
the living. We bring our offering, but he is not here 
who should receive it ; in his stead are vacancy and 
silence ; there is no eye to brighten at our words, 
and no voice to answer. " It is an empty office that 



46 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

we perform," said Virgil, in his melodious verses, when 
commemorating the virtues of the young Marcellus, 
and bidding flowers be strewn, with full hands, over 
his early grave. We might apply the expression to 
the present occasion, but it would be true in part 
only. We can no longer do anything for him who is 
departed, but we may do what will not be without 
fruit to those who remain. It is good to occupy our 
thoughts with the example of eminent talents in 
conjunction with great virtues. His genius has pass- 
ed away with him ; but we may learn, from the his- 
tory of his life, to employ the faculties we possess 
with useful activity and noble aims ; we may copy 
his magnanimous frankness, his disdain of everything 
that wears the faintest semblance of deceit, his re- 
fusal to comply with current abuses, and the cour- 
age with which, on all occasions, he asserted what he 
deemed truth, and combated what he thought error. 

The circumstances of Cooper's early life were re- 
markably suited to confirm the natural hardihood 
and manliness of his character, and to call forth and 
exercise that extraordinary power of observation, 
which accumulated the materials afterwards wielded 
and shaped by his genius. His father, while an in- 
habitant of Burlington, in New Jersey, on the pleas- 
ant banks of the Delaware, was the owner of large 



JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 47 

possessions on the borders of the Otsego Lake in 
our own State, and here, in the newly-cleared fields, 
he built, in 1786, the first house in Cooperstown. 
To this home. Cooper, who was born in Burlington, 
in the year 1789, was conveyed in his infancy, and 
here, as he informs us in his preface to the Pioneers, 
his first impressions of the external world were ob- 
tained. Here he passed his childhood, with the vast 
forest around him, stretching up the mountains that 
overlook the lake, and far beyond, in a region where 
the Indian yet roamed, and the white hunter, half 
Indian in his dress and mode of life, sought his 
game, — a region in which the bear and the wolf were 
yet hunted, and the panther, more formidable than 
either, lurked in the thickets, and tales of wander- 
ings in the wilderness, and encounters with these 
fierce animals, beguiled the length of the winter 
nights. Of this place. Cooper, although early re- 
moved from it to pursue his studies, was an occa- 
sional resident throughout his life, and here his last 
years were wholly passed. 

At the age of thirteen he was sent to Yale Col- 
lege, where, notwithstanding his extreme youth, — 
for, with the exception of the poet Hillhouse, he was 
the youngest of his class, and Hillhouse was after- 
wards withdrawn, — his progress in his studies is said 



48 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

to have been honorable to his talents. He left the 
college, after a residence of three years-, and became a 
midshipman in the United States navy. Six years 
he followed the sea, and there yet wanders, among 
those who are fond of literary anecdote, a story of 
the young sailor who, in the streets of one of the 
English poi"ts, attracted the curiosity of the crowd by 
explaining to his companions a Latin motto in some 
public place. That during this period he made him- 
self master of the knowledge and the imagery which 
he afterwards employed to so much advantage in his 
romances of the sea, the finest ever written, is a 
common and obvious remark; but it has not been, 
so far as I know, observed that from the discipline 
of a seaman's life he may have derived much of his 
readiness and fertility of invention, much of his skill 
in surrounding the personages of his novels with im- 
aginary perils, and rescuing them by probable expe- 
dients. Of all pursuits, the life of a sailor is that 
which familiarizes men to danger in its most fearful 
shapes, most cultivates presence of mind, and most 
effectually calls forth the resources of a prompt and 
fearless dexterity by which imminent evil is avoided. 
In 1811, Cooper having resigned his post as mid- 
shipman, began the year by marrying Miss Delancy, 
sister of the present bishop of the diocese of Western 



JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 49 

New York, and entered upon a domestic life happily 
passed to its close. He went to live at Mamaro- 
neck, in the county of Westchester, and while here 
he wrote and published the first of his novels, en- 
titled Precaution. Concerning the occasion of writ- 
ing this work, it is related, that once as he was read- 
ing an English novel to Mrs. Cooper, who has, within 
a short time past, been laid in the grave beside her 
illustrious husband, and of whom we may now say, 
that her goodness was no less eminent than his ge- 
nius, he suddenly laid down the book, and said, " I 
believe I could write a better myself." Almost im- 
mediately he composed a chapter of a projected work 
of fiction, and read it to the same friendly judge, 
who encouraged him to finish it, and when it was 
completed, suggested its publication. Of this he 
had at the time no intention, but he was at length 
induced to submit the manuscript to the examination 
of the late Charles Wilkes, of this city, in whose lite- 
rary opinions he had great confidence. Mr. Wilkes 
advised that it should be published, and to these cir- 
cumstances we owe it that Cooper became an author. 
I confess I have merely dipped into this work. 
The experiment was made with the first edition, de- 
formed by a strange punctuation — a profusion of 
commas, and other pauses, which puzzled and repel- 
3 



50 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

led me. Its author, many years afterwards, revised 
and republished it, correcting this fault, and some 
faults of style also, so that to a casual inspection it 
appeared almost another work. It was a professed 
delineation of English manners, though the author 
had then seen nothing of English society. It had, 
however, the honor of being adopted by the country 
whose manners it described, and, being early repub- 
lished in Great Britain, passed from the first for an 
English novel. I am not unwilling to believe what 
is said of it, that it contained a promise of the powers 
which its author afterwards put forth. 

Thirty years ago, in the year 1821, and in the 
thirty-second of his life. Cooper published the first of 
the works by which he will be known to posterity, 
the Spy. It took the reading world by a kind of sur- 
prise ; its merit was acknowledged by a rapid sale ; 
the public read with eagerness and the critics won- 
dered. Many withheld their commendations on ac- 
count of defects in the plot or blemishes in the com- 
position, arising from want of practice, and some 
waited till they could hear the judgment of European 
readers. Yet there were not wanting critics in this 
country, of whose good opinion any author in any 
part of the world might be proud, who spoke of it in 
terms it deserved. " Are you not delighted," wrote 



JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 5 1 

a literary friend to me, who has since risen to high 
distinction as a writer, both in verse and in prose, 
" are you not delighted with the Spy, as a work of in- 
finite spirit and genius ? " In that word genius lay 
the explanation of the hold which the work had tak- 
en on the minds of men. What it had of excellence 
was peculiar and unborrowed ; its pictures of life, 
whether in repose or activity, were drawn, with broad 
lights and shadows, immediately from living originals 
in nature or in his own imagination. To him what- 
ever he described was true ; it was made a reality to 
him by the strength with which he conceived it. His 
power in the delineation of character was shown in 
the principal personage of his story, Harvey Birch, 
on whom, though he has chosen to employ him in the 
ignoble office of a spy, and endowed him with the 
qualities necessary to his profession, — extreme cir- 
cumspection, fertility in stratagem, and the art of 
concealing his real character — qualities which, in con- 
junction with selfishness and greediness, make the 
scoundrel, he has bestowed the virtues of generosity, 
magnanimity, an intense love of country, a fidelity 
not to be corrupted, and a disinterestedness beyond 
temptation. Out of this combination of qualities he 
has wrought a character which is a favorite in all na- 
tions, and with all classes of mankind. 



52 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

It is said that if you cast a pebble into the ocean, 
at the mouth of our harbor, the vibration made in the 
water passes gradually on till it strikes the icy bar- 
riers of the deep at the south pole. The spread of 
Cooper's reputation is not confined within narrower 
limits. The Spy is read in all the written dialects of 
Europe, and in some of those of Asia. The French, 
immediately after its first appearance, gave it to the 
multitudes who read their far-difiiised language, and 
placed it among the first works of its class. It was 
rendered into Castilian, and passed into the hands of 
those who dwell under the beams of the Southern 
Cross. At length it crossed the eastern frontier of 
Europe, and the latest record I have seen of its pro- 
gress towards absolute universality, is contained in 
a statement of the International Alagazifie, derived, I 
presume, from its author, that in 1 847 it was publish- 
ed in a Persian translation at Ispahan. Before this 
time, I doubt not, they are reading it in some of the 
languages of Hindostan, and, if the Chinese ever 
translated anything, it would be in the hands of the 
many millions who inhabit the far Cathay. 

I have spoken of the hesitation which American 
critics felt in admitting the merits of the Spy, on ac- 
count of crudities in the plot or the composition, 
some of which, no doubt, really existed. An excep- 



JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 53 

tion must be made in favor of the Port Folio which 
in a notice writen by Mrs. Sarah Hall, mother of the 
editor of that periodical, and author of Conversations 
on the Bible, gave the work a cordial welcome ; and 
Cooper, as I am informed, never forgot this act of 
timely and ready kindness. 

It was perhaps favorable to the immediate suc- 
cess of the Spy, that Cooper had few American au- 
thors to divide with him the public attention. That 
crowd of clever men and women who now write for 
the magazines, who send out volumes of essays, 
sketches, and poems, and who supply the press with 
novels, biographies, and historical works, were then, 
for the most part, either stammering their lessons in 
the schools, or yet unborn. Yet it is worthy of note, 
that just about the time that the Spy made its ap- 
pearance, the dawn of what we now call our literature 
was just breaking. The concluding number of 
Dana's Idle Man, a work neglected at first, but now 
numbered among the best things of the kind in our 
language, was issued in the same month. The 
Sketch Book was then just completed ; the world was 
admiring it, and its author was meditating Brace- 
bridge Hall. Miss Sedgwick, about the same time, 
made her first essay in that charming series of novels 
of domestic life in New England, which have gained 



54 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

her so high a reputation. Percival, now unhappily 
silent, had just put to press a volume of poems. I 
have a copy of an edition of Halleck's Fanny, pub- 
lished in the same year ; the poem of Yanioyden, by 
Eastburn and Sands, appeared almost simultaneously 
with it. Livingston was putting the finishing hand 
to his Report on the Penal Code of Louisiana, a work 
written with such grave, persuasive eloquence, that it 
belongs as much to our literature as to our juris- 
prudence. Other contemporaneous American works 
there were, now less read. Paul Allen's poem of 
Noah was just laid on the counters of the booksel- 
lers. Arden published, at the same time, in this 
city, a translation of Ovid's Tristia, in heroic verse, 
in which the complaints of the effeminate Roman 
poet were rendered with great fidelity to the original, 
and sometimes not without beauty. If I may speak 
of myself, it was in that year that I timidly intrusted 
to the winds and waves of public opinion a small car- 
go of my own-^a poem entitled The Ages, and half a 
dozen shorter ones, in a thin duodecimo volume, 
printed at Cambridge. 

We had, at the same time, works of elegant litera- 
ture, fresh from the press of Great Britain, which are 
still read and admired. Barry Cornwall, then a young 
suitor for fame, published in the same year his Mar- 



JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 55 

cia Colonna ; Byron, in the full strength and fertility 
of his genius, gave the readers of English his tragedy 
of Marino Faliero, and was in the midst of his spirit- 
ed controversy with Bowles concerning the poetry of 
Pope. The Spy had to sustain a comparison with 
Scott's Antiquary, published simultaneously with it, 
and with Lockhart's Valerius, which seems to me 
one of the most remarkable works of fiction ever 
composed. 

In 1823, and in his thirty-fourth year. Cooper 
brought out his novel of the Pioneers, the scene of 
which was laid on the borders of his own beautiful 
lake. In a recent survey of Mr. Cooper's works, by 
one of his admirers, it is intimated that the rep- 
utation of this work may have been in some degree 
factitious. I cannot think so ; I cannot see how such 
a work could fail of becoming, sooner or later, a fa- 
vorite. It was several years after its first appearance 
that I read the Pioneers, and I read it with a delight- 
ed astonishment. Here, said I to myself, is the poet 
of rural life in this country — our Hesiod, our Theo- 
critus, except that he writes without the restraint of 
numbers, and is a greater poet than they. In the 
Pioneers, as in a moving picture, are made to pass 
before us the hardy occupations and spirited amuse- 
ments of a prosperous settlement, in a fertile region. 



56 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. ^ 

encompassed for leagues around with the primeval 
wilderness of woods. The seasons in their different 
aspects, bringing with them their different employ- 
ments ; forests falling before the axe ; the cheerful 
population, with the first mild day of spring, engaged 
in the sugar orchards ; the chase of the deer through 
the deep woods, and into the lake ; turkey-shooting, 
cluring the Christmas holidays, in which the Indian 
marksman vied for the prize of skill with the white 
man ; swift sleigh rides under the bright winter sun, 
and perilous encounters with wild animals in the for- 
ests ; these, and other scenes of rural life, drawn, as 
Cooper knew how to draw them, in the bright and 
healthful coloring of which he was master, are inter- 
woven with a regular narrative of human fortunes, 
not unskilfully constructed ; and how could such a 
work be otherwise than popular ? 

In the Pioneers, Leatherstocking is first intro- 
duced — a philosopher of the woods, ignorant of books, 
but instructed in all that nature, without the aid of 
science, could reveal to the man of quick senses and 
inquiring intellect, whose life has been passed under 
the open sky, and in companionship with a race whose 
animal perceptions are the acutest and most culti- 
vated of which there is any example. But Leath- 
erstocking has higher qualities ; in him there is a 



JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 57 

genial blending of the gentlest virtues of the civilized 
man with the better nature of the aboriginal tribes ; 
all that in them is noble, generous, and ideal, is 
adopted into his own kindly character, and all that is 
evil is rejected. But why should I attempt to analyze 
a character so familiar .'' Leatherstocking is acknowl- 
edged, on all hands, to be one of the noblest, as well 
as most' striking and original creations of fiction. 
In some of his subsequent novels. Cooper — for he 
had not yet attained to the full maturity of his pow- 
ers — heightened and ennobled his first conception of 
the character, but in the Pioneers it ^lZzAq^ the world 
with the splendor of novelty. 

His next work was the Pilot, in which he showed 
how, from the vicissitudes of a life at sea, its perils 
and escapes, from the beauty and terrors of the great 
deep, from the working of a vessel on a long voyage, 
and from the frank, brave, and generous, but pecu- 
liar character of the seamen, may be drawn materials 
of romance by which the minds of men may be as 
deeply moved as by anything in the power of ro- 
mance to present. In this walk. Cooper has had 
many disciples, but no rival. All who have since 
written romances of the sea have been but travellers 
in a country of which he was the great discoverer ; 
and none of them all seemed to have loved a ship as 
3* 



58 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

Cooper loved it, or have been able so strongly to in- 
terest all classes of readers in its fortunes. Among 
other personages drawn with great strength in the 
Pilot, is the general favorite, Tom Coffin, the thor- 
ough seaman, with all the virtues and one or two of 
the infirmities of his profession, superstitious, as sea- 
men are apt to be, yet whose superstitions strike us 
as but an irregular growth of his devout recognition 
of the Power who holds the ocean in the hollow of 
his hand ; true hearted, gentle, full of resources, col- 
lected in danger, and at last calmly perishing at the 
post of duty, with the vessel he has long guided, by 
what I may call a great and magnanimous death. 
His rougher and coarser companion, Boltrope, is 
drawn with scarcely less skill, and with a no less vig- 
orous hand. 

The Pioneers is not Cooper's best tale of the 
American forest, nor the Pilot, perhaps, in all re- 
spects, his best tale of the sea ; yet, if he had ceased 
to write here, the measure of his fame would possi- 
bly have been scarcely less ample than it now is. 
Neither of them is far below the best of his produc- 
tions, and in them appear the two most remarkable 
creations of his imagination — two of the most re- 
markable characters in all fiction. 



JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 59 

It was about this time that my acquaintance with 
Cooper began, an acquaintance of more than a quar- 
ter of a century, in which his deportment towards me 
was that of unvaried kindness. He then resided a 
considerable part of the year in this city, and here he 
had founded a weekly club, to which many of the 
most distinguished men of the place belonged. Of 
the members who have since passed away, were 
Chancellor Kent, the jurist ; Wiley, the intelligent 
and liberal bookseller ; Henry D. Sedgwick, always 
active in schemes of benevolence ; Jarvis, the paint- 
er, a man of infinite humor, whose jests awoke inex- 
tinguishable laughter ; De Kay, the naturalist ; 
Sands, the poet ; Jacob Harvey, whose genial mem- 
ory is cherished by many friends. Of those who are 
yet living was Morse, the inventor of the electric tel- 
egraph ; Durand, then one of the first of engravers, 
and now no less illustrious as a painter ; Henry 
James Anderson, whose acquirements might awaken 
the envy of the ripest scholars of the old world ; 
Halleck, the poet and wit ; Verplanck, who has giv- 
en the world the best edition of Shakspeare for gen- 
eral readers ; Dr. King, now at the head of Colum- 
bia College, and his two immediate predecessors in 
that office. I might enlarge the list with many other 
names of no less distinction. The army and navy 



60 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

contributed their proportion of members, whose 
names are on record in our national history. Cooper 
when in town was always present, and I remember 
being struck with the inexhaustible vivacity of his 
conversation and the minuteness of his knowledge, 
in everything which depended upon acuteness of ob- 
servation and exactness of recollection. I remem- 
ber, too, being somewhat startled, coming as I did 
from the seclusion of a country life, with a certain 
emphatic frankness in his manner, which, however, I 
came at last to like and to admire. The club met in 
the hotel called Washington Hall, the site of which is 
now occupied by part of the circuit of Stewart's mar- 
ble building. 

Lionel Lincoln, which cannot be ranked among 
the successful productions of Cooper, was published 
in 1825 ; and in the year following appeared the Last 
of the Mohicans, which more than recovered the 
ground lost by its predecessor. In this work, the 
construction of the narrative has signal defects, but 
it is one of the triumphs of the author's genius that 
he makes us unconscious of them while we read. It 
is only when we have had time to awake from the in- 
tense interest in which he has held us by the vivid 
reality of his narrative, and have begun to search for 
faults in cold blood, that we are able to find them. 



JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 6 1 

In the Last of the Mohicans, we have a bolder por- 
traiture of Leatherstocking than in the Pioneers. 

This work was published in 1826, and in the 
same year Cooper sailed with his family for Europe. 
He left New York as one of the vessels of war, de- 
scribed in his romances of the sea, goes out of port, 
amidst the thunder of a parting salute from the big 
guns on the batteries. A dinner was given him just 
before his departure, attended by most of the distin- 
guished men of the city, at which Peter A. Jay pre- 
sided, and Dr. King addressed him in terms which 
some then thought too glowing, but which would now 
seem sufficiently temperate, expressing the good 
wishes of his friends, and dwelling on the satisfaction 
they promised themselves in possessing so illustrious 
a representative of American literature in the old 
world. Cooper was scarcely in France when he re- 
membered his friends of the weekly club, and sent 
frequent missives to be read at its meetings ; but 
the club missed its founder, went into a decline, and 
not long afterwards quietly expired. 

The first of Cooper's novels published after leav- 
ing America was the Prairie, which appeared early 
in 1827, a work with the admirers of which I wholly 
agree. I read it with a certain awe, an undefined 
sense of sublimity, such as one experiences on en- 



62 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

tering for the first time, upon those immense grassy 
deserts from which the work takes its name. The 
squatter and his family — that brawny old man and 
his large-limbed sons, living in a sort of primitive and 
patriarchal barbarism, sluggish on ordinary occasions, 
but terrible when roused, like the hurricane that sweeps 
the grand but monotonous wilderness in which 
they dwell — seem a natural growth of the ancient 
fields of the West. Leatherstocking, a hunter in the 
Pioneers, a warrior in the Last of the Mohicans, and 
now in his extreme old ag-e, a trapper on the prairie, 
declined in strength but undecayed in intellect, and 
looking to the near close of his life and a grave un- 
der the long grass, as calmly as the laborer at sun- 
set looks to his evening slumber, is no less in har- 
mony with the silent desert in which he wanders. 
Equally so, are the Indians, still his companions, 
copies of the American savage somewhat idealized 
but not the less a part of the wild nature in which 
they have their haunts. 

Before the year closed. Cooper had given the 
world another nautical tale, the Red Rover, which 
with many, is a greater favorite than the Pilot, and 
with reason, perhaps, if we consider principally the 
incidents, which are conducted and described with a 
greater mastery over the springs of pity and terror. 



JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 6t, 

It happened to Cooper while he was abroad, as 
it not unfrequently happens to our countrymen, to 
hear the United States disadvantageously compared 
with Europe. He had himself been a close observer 
of things both here and in the old world, and was 
conscious of being able to refute the detractors of 
his country in regard to many points. He published, 
in 1828, after he had been two years in Europe, a se- 
ries of letters, entitled Notions of the Americans by a 
' travelling Bachelor, in which he gave a favorable ac- 
count of the working of our institutions and vindi- 
cated his country from various flippant and ill-natured 
misrepresentations of foreigners. It is rather too 
measured in style, but is written from a mind full of 
the subject, and from a memory wonderfully stored 
with particulars. Although twenty-four years have 
elapsed since its publication, but little of the vindica- 
tion has become obsolete. 

Cooper loved his country and was proud of her 
history and her institutions, but it puzzles many that 
he should have appeared, at different times, as her 
eulogist and her censor. My friends, she is worthy 
both of praise and of blame, and Cooper was not the 
man to shrink from bestowing either, at what seemed 
to him the proper time. He defended her from detrac- 
tors abroad ; he sought to save her from flatterers at 



64 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

home. I will not say that he was in as good-humor 
with his country when he wrote Home as Found, as 
when he wrote his Notions of the Americans, but 
this I will say, that whether he commended or cen- 
sured, he did it in the sincerity of his heart, as a true 
American, and in the belief that it would do good. 
His Notions of the Americans were more likely to 
lessen than to increase his popularity in Europe, 
inasmuch as they were put forth without the slightest 
regard to European prejudices. 

In 1829, he brought out the novel entitled TJie 
Wept of Wishton-Wish, one of the few of his works 
which we now rarely hear mentioned. He was en- 
gaged in the composition of a third nautical tale, 
which he afterwards published under the name of the 
Water-Witch, when the memorable revolution of the 
Three Days of July broke out. He saw a govern- 
ment, ruling by fear and in defiance of public opinion, 
overthrown in a few hours, with little bloodshed ; he 
saw the French nation, far from being intoxicated 
with their new liberty, peacefully addressing them- 
selves to the discussion of the institutions under 
which they were to live. A work which Cooper 
afterwards published, his Residence in Europe, gives 
the outline of a plan of government for France fur- 
nished by him at that time to La Fayette, with 



JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 65 

whom he was m habits of close and daily intimacy. 
It was his idea to give permanence to the new or- 
der of things by associating two strong parties in 
its support, the friends of legitimacy and the republi- 
cans. He suggested that Henry V. should be called 
to the hereditary throne of France, a youth yet to be 
educated as the head of a free people, that the peer- 
age should be abolished, and a legislature of two 
chambers established, with a constituency of at least 
a million and a half of electors ; the senate to be 
chosen by the general vote, as the representative of 
the entire nation, and the members of the other 
house to be chosen by districts, as the representa- 
tives of the local interests. To the middle ground of 
politics so ostentatiously occupied by Louis Philippe 
at the beginning of his reign, he predicted a brief du- 
ration, believing that it would speedily be merged in 
despotism, or supplanted by the popular rule. His 
prophecy has been fulfilled more amply than he could 
have imagined — fulfilled in both its alternatives. 

In one of the controversies of that time, Cooper 
bore a distinguished part. The Revue Britanniqice, 
a periodical published in Paris, boldly affirmed the 
government of the United States to be one of the 
most expensive in the world, and its people among 
the most heavily taxed of mankind. This assertion 



66 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

was supported with a certain show of proof, and the 
writer affected to have estabUshed the conclusion 
that a repubUc must necessarily be more expensive 
than a monarchy. The partisans of the court were 
delighted with the reasoning of the article, and claim- 
ed a triumph over our ancient friend La Fayette, 
who, during forty years, had not ceased to hold up the 
government of the United States as the cheapest in 
the world. At the suggestion of La Fayette, Cooper 
replied to this attack upon his country in a letter 
which was translated into French, and, together 
with another from General Bertrand, for many years 
a resident in America, was laid before the people of 
France. 

These two letters provoked a shower of rejoiners, 
in which, according to Cooper, misstatements were 
mingled with scurrility. He commenced a series of 
letters on the question in dispute, which were pub- 
lished in the National, a daily sheet, and gave the 
first evidence of that extraordinary acuteness in con- 
troversy which was no less characteristic of his mind 
than the vigor of his imagination. The enemies of 
La Fayette pressed into their service Mr. Leavitt 
Harris, of New Jersey, afterwards our charge d'af- 
faires at the court of France, but Cooper replied to 
Mr. Harris in the National of May 2d, 1832, closing 



JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 6/ 

a discussion in which he had effectually silenced 
those who objected to our institutions on the score of 
economy. Of these letters, which would form an im-. 
portant chapter in political science, no entire copy, 
I have been told, is to be found in this country. 

One of the consequences of earnest controversy 
is almost invariably personal ill-will. Cooper was 
told by one who held an official station under the 
French government, that the part he had taken in 
this dispute concerning taxation would neither be 
forgotten nor forgiven. The dislike he had incurred 
in that quarter was strengthened by his novel of the 
Bravo, published in the year 183 1, while he was in 
the midst of his quarrel with the aristocratic party. 
In that work, of which he has himself justly said that 
it was thoroughly American in all that belonged to it, 
his object was to show how institutions, professedly 
created to prevent violence and wrong, become, 
when perverted from their natural destination, the 
instruments of injustice ; and how, in every system 
which makes power the exclusive property of the 
strong, the weak are sure to be oppressed. The 
work is written with all the vigor and spirit of his 
best novels ; the magnificent city of Venice, in which 
the scene of the story is laid, stands continually be- 
fore the imagination ; and from time to time the gor- 



6S ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

geous ceremonies of the Venetian republic pass under 
our eyes, such as the marriage of the Doge with the 
Adriatic, and the contest of the gondolas for the priz . 
of speed. The Bravo himself and several of the 
other characters are strongly conceived and distin- 
guished, but the most remarkable of them all is the 
spirited and generous-hearted daughter of the jailer. 

It has been said by some critics, who judge of 
Cooper by his failures, that he had no skill in drawing 
female characters. By the same process, it might, I 
suppose, be shown that Raphael was but an ordinary 
painter. It must be admitted that when Cooper 
drew a lady of high breeding, he was apt to pay too 
much attention to the formal part of her character, 
and to make her a mere bundle of cold proprieties. 
But when he places his heroines in some situations in 
life which leaves him nothing to do but to make them 
natural and true, I know of nothing finer, nothing 
more attractive or more individual than the portrait- 
ures he has given us. 

Figaro, the wittiest of the French periodicals, and 
at that time on the liberal side, commended the 
Bravo ; the journals on the side of the government 
censured it. Figaro afterwards passed into the hands 
of the aristocratic party, and Cooper became the ob- 
ject of its attacks : he was not, however, a man to be 



JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 69 

driven from any purpose which, he had formed, either 
by flattery or abuse, and both were tried with equal 
ill success. In 1832 he published his Heidem^taicer, 
and in 1833 his Headsman of Bei'ne, both with a po- 
litical design similar to that of the Bravo, though 
neither of them takes the same high rank among his 
works. 

In 1833, after a residence of seven years in differ- 
ent parts of Europe, but mostly in France, Cooper re- 
turned to his native country. The welcome which 
met him here was somewhat chilled by the effect of 
the attacks made upon him in France, and remem- 
bering with what zeal, and at what sacrifice of the 
universal acceptance which his works would other- 
wise have met, he had maintained the cause of his 
country against the wits and orators of the court par- 
ty in France, we cannot wonder that he should have 
felt this coldness as undeserved. He published, 
shortly after his arrival in this country, A letter to his 
Cottntrymen in which he complained of the censures 
cast upon him in the American newspapers, gave a 
history of the part he had taken in exposing the mis- 
statements of the Revue Britannigzie, and warned 
his countrymen against the too common error of re- 
sorting, with a blind deference, to foreign authorities, 
often swayed by national or political prejudices, for 



70 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

our opinions of American authors. Going beyond 
this topic, he examined and reprehended the habit of 
applying to the interpretation of our own constitution 
maxims derived from the practice of other govern- 
ments, particularly that of Great Britain. The im- 
portance of construing that instrument by its own 
principles, he illustrated by considering several points 
in dispute between parties of the day, on which he 
gave very decided opinions. 

The prmcipal effect of this pamphlet, as it seem- 
ed to me, was to awaken in certain quarters a kind of 
resentment that a successful writer of fiction should 
presume to give lessons in politics. I meddle not 
here with the conclusions to which he arrived, though 
must be allowed to say that they were stated and 
argued with great ability. In 1835 Cooper published 
The Monnikins, a satirical work, partly with a polit- 
ical aim ; and in the same year appeared the Ameri- 
can Democrat, a view of the civil and social relations 
of the United States, discussing more gravely various 
topics touched upon in the former work, and pointing 
out in what respects he deemed the American people 
in their practice to have fallen short of the excellence 
of their institutions. 

He found time, however, for a more genial task — 
that of giving to the world his observations on foreign 



JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 7 1 

countries. In 1836 appeared his Sketches of Swit- 
zerland, a series of letters in four volumes, the second 
part published about two months after the first, a de- 
lightful work, written in a more fluent and flexible 
style than his Notio7is of the Americans. The first 
part of Gleanings i7i Etirope, giving an account of his 
residence in France, followed in the same year ; and 
the second part of the same work, containing his 
observations on England, was published in April, 
1837. Ill these works, forming a series of eight 
volumes, he relates and describes with much of the 
same distinctness as in his novels ; and his remarks 
on the manners and institutions of the different 
countries, often sagacious, and always peculiarly his 
own, derive, from their frequent reference to contem- 
porary events, an historical interest. 

In 1838 appeared Homeward Bound and Home as 
Found, two satirical novels, in which Cooper held up 
to ridicule a certain class of conductors of the news- 
paper press in America. These works had not the 
good fortune to become popular. Cooper did not, 
and, because he was too deeply in earnest, perhaps 
would not, infuse into his satirical works that gayety 
without which satire becomes wearisome. I believe, 
however, that if they had been written by anybody 
else, they would have met with more favor ; but the 



72 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

world knew that Cooper was able to give them some- 
thing better, and would not be satisfied with anything 
short of his best. Some childishly imagined that be- 
cause, in the two works I have just mentioned, a 
newspaper editor is introduced, in whose character 
almost every possible vice of his profession is made 
to find a place. Cooper intended an indiscriminate at- 
tack upon the whole body of writers for the news- 
paper press, forgetting that such a portraiture was a 
satire only on those to whom it bore a likeness. We 
have become less sensitive and more reasonable of 
late, and the monthly periodicals make sport for their 
readers of the follies and ignorance of the newspaper 
editors, without awakening the slightest resentment ; 
but Cooper led the way into this sort of discipline, and 
I remember some instances of towering indignation 
at his audacity expressed in the journals of that time. 
The next year Cooper made his appearance be- 
fore the public in a new department of writing ; his 
Naval History of the United States was brought out 
in two octavo volumes at Philadelphia, by Carey and 
Lea. In writing his stories of the sea, his attention 
had been much turned to this subject, and his mind 
filled with striking incidents from expeditions and 
battles in which our naval commanders had been en- 
gaged. This made his task the lighter ; but he 



JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 73 

gathered his materials with great industry, and with a 
conscientious attention to exactness, for he was not 
a man to take a fact for granted, or allow imagination 
to usurp the place of inquiry. He digested our naval 
annals into a narrative, written with spirit it is true, 
but with that air of sincere dealing which the reader 
willingly takes as a pledge of its authenticity. 

An abridgment of the work was afterwards pre- 
pared and published by the author. The Edinburgh 
Review, in an article professing to examine the state- 
ments both of Cooper's work and of The History of 
the English Navy, written by Mr. James, a surgeon 
by profession, made a violent attack upon the Ameri- 
can historian. Unfortunately, it took James's narra- 
tive as its sole guide, and followed it implicitly, 
Cooper replied in the Democratic Review for January, 
1840, and by a masterly analysis of his statements, 
convicting James of self-contradiction in almost every 
particular in which he differed from himself, refuted 
both James and the reviewer. It was a refutation 
which admitted of no rejoinder. 

Scarce anything in Cooper's life was so remark- 
able, or so strikingly illustrated his character, as his 
contest with the newspaper press. He engaged in it 
after provocations, many and long-endured, and pros- 
ecuted it through years with great energy, persever- 
4 



74 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

ance, and practical dexterity, till he was left master 
of the field. In what I am about to say of it, I hope 
I shall not give offence to any one, as I shall speak 
without the slightest malevolence towards those with 
whom he waged this controversy. Over some of 
them, as over their renowned adversary, the grave 
has now closed. Yet where shall the truth be 
spoken, if not beside the grave .-• 

I have already alluded to the principal causes 
which provoked the newspaper attacks upon Cooper. 
If he had never meddled with questions of govern- 
ment on either side of the Atlantic, and never satir- 
ized the newspaper press, I have little doubt that he 
would have been spared these attacks. I cannot, 
however, ascribe them all, or even the greater part 
of them, to personal malignity. One journal followed 
the example of another, with little reflection, I think, 
in most cases, till it became a sort of fashion, not 
merely to decry his works, but to arraign his motives. 

It is related that, in 1832, while he was at Paris, 
an article was shown him in an American newspaper, 
purporting to be a criticism on one of his works, but 
reflecting with much asperity on his personal charac- 
ter. " I care nothing," he is reported to have said, 
" for the criticism, but I am not indifferent to the 
slander. If these attacks on my character should be 



JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 75 

kept up five years after my return to America, I shall 
resort to the New York courts for protection." He 
gave the newspaper press of this State the full period 
of forbearance on which he had fixed, but finding 
that forbearance seemed to encourage assault, he 
sought redress in the courts of law. 

When these litigations were first begun, I rec- 
ollect it seemed to me that Cooper had taken a step 
which would give him a great deal of trouble, and 
effect but little good. I said to myself — 

" Alas ! Leviathan is not so tamed ! " 

As he proceeded, however, I saw that he had under- 
stood the matter better than I. He put a hook into 
the nose of this huge monster, wallowing in his inky 
pool and bespattering the passers-by : he dragged 
him to the land and made him tractable. One suit 
followed another ; one editor was sued, I think, half- 
a-dozen times ; some of them found themselves under 
a second indictment before the first was tried. In 
vindicating himself to his reader, against the charge 
of publishing one libel, the angry journalist often 
floundered into another. The occasions of these 
prosecutions seem to have been always carefully con- 
sidered, for Cooper was almost uniformly successful 
in obtaining verdicts. In a letter of his, written in 



^6 . ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

February, 1843, about five years, I think, from the 
commencement of the first prosecutions, lie says, " I 
have beaten every man I have sued, who has not re- 
tracted his Hbels." 

In one of these suits, commenced against the late 
William L. Stone of the Coifnncrcial Advertiser, and 
referred to the arbitration of three distinguished law- 
yers, he argued himself the question of the authentic- 
ity of his account of the battle of Lake Erie, which 
was the matter in dispute. I listened to his opening ; 
it was clear, skilful, and persuasive, but his closing 
argument was said to be splendidly eloquent. " I 
have heard nothing like it," said a barrister to me, 
" since the days of Emmet." 

Cooper behaved liberally towards his antagonists, 
so far as pecuniary damages were concerned, though 
some of them wholly escaped their payment by bank- 
ruptcy. After, I believe, about six years of litigation, 
the newspaper press gradually subsided into a pacific 
disposition towards its adversary, and the contest 
closed with the account of pecuniary profit and loss, 
so far as he was concerned, nearly balanced. The 
occasion of these suits was far from honorable to 
those who provoked them, but the result was, I had 
almost said, creditable to all parties ; to him, as the 
courageous prosecutor, to the administration of jus- 



JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 7/ 

tice in this country, and to the dociUty of the news- 
paper press, which he had disciplined into good mj3,n- 
ners. 

It was while he was in the midst of these litiga- 
tions, that he published, in 1840, the Pathfinder. 
People had begun to think of him as a controver- 
sialist, acute, keen, and persevering, occupied with his 
personal wrongs and schemes of attack and defence. 
They were startled from this estimate of his character 
by the moral duty of that glorious work — I must so 
call it ; by the vividness and force of its delineations, 
by the unspoiled love of nature apparent in every 
page, and by the fresh and warm emotions which 
everywhere gave life to the narrative and the dia- 
logue. Cooper was now in his fifty-first year, but 
nothing which he had produced in the earlier part of 
his literary life was written with so much of what 
might seem the generous fervor of youth, or showed 
the faculty of invention in higher vigor. I recollect 
that near the time of its appearance I was informed 
of an observation made upon it by one highly distin- 
guished in the literature of our country and of the 
age, between whom and the author an unhappy cool- 
ness had for some years existed. As he finished the 
reading of the Pathfinder, he exclaimed, " They may 
say what they will of Cooper ; the man who wrote 



7S ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

this book is not only a great man, but a good 
man." 

The readers of the Pathfinder were quickly rec- 
onciled to the fourth appearance of Leatherstocking, 
when they saw him made to act a different part from 
any which the author had hitherto assigned him — 
when they saw him shown as a lover, and placed in 
the midst of associations which invested his charac- 
ter with a higher and more affecting heroism. In 
this work are two female characters, portrayed in a 
masterly manner, — the corporal's daughter, Mabel 
Dunham, generous, resolute, yet womanly, and the 
young Indian woman, called by her tribe the Dew of 
June, a personification of female truth, affection, and 
sympathy, with a strong aboriginal cast, yet a product 
of nature as bright and pure as that from which she 
is named. 

Mercedes of Castile, published near the close of 
the same year, has none of the stronger characteris- 
tics of Cooper's genius ; but in the Deerslayer, which 
appeared in 1841, another of his Leatherstocking 
tales, he gave us a work rivalling the Pathfinder.' 
Leatherstocking is brought before us in his early 
youth, in the first exercise of that keen sagacity 
which is blended so harmoniously with a simple and 
ingenuous goodness. The two daughters of the re- 



JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 79 

tired freebooter dwelling on the Otsego lake, inspire 
scarcely less interest than the principal personage ; 
Judith, in the pride of her beauty and intellect, her 
good impulses contending with a fatal love of admi- 
ration, holding us fascinated with a constant interest 
in her fate, which, with consummate skill, we are per- 
mitted rather to conjecture than to know ; and Hetty, 
scarcely less beautiful in person, weak-minded, but 
wise in the midst of that weakness beyond the wis- 
dom of the loftiest intellect, through the power of 
conscience and religion. The character of Hetty 
would have been a hazardous experiment in feebler 
hands, but in his it was admirably successful. 

. The Two Admirals and Wing-and-Wing were 
given to the public in 1842, both of them taking a 
high rank among Cooper's sea-tales. The first of 
these is a sort of naval epic in prose ; the flight and 
chase of armed vessels hold us in breathless sus- 
pense, the sea-fights are described with a terrible 
power. In the later sea-tales of Cooper, it seems to 
me that the mastery with which he makes his grand 
processions of events pass before the mind's eye is 
even greater than in his earlier. The next year he 
published the Wyandotte or Htitted Knoll, one of his 
beautiful romances of the woods, and in 1844 two 
more of his sea-stories. Afloat and Ashore and Miles 



80 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

Wallingford its sequel. The long series of his nau- 
tical tales was closed by yack Tier or the Florida 
Reef, published in 1848, when Cooper was in his 
sixtieth year, and it is as full of spirit, energy, in- 
vention, life-like presentation of objects and events — 

The vision and the faculty divine — 

as anything he has written. 

Let me pause here to say that Cooper, though not 
a manufacturer of verse, was in the highest sense of 
the word a poet ; his imagination wrought nobly and 
grandly, and imposed its creations on the mind of the 
reader for realities.. With him there was no wither- 
ing, or decline, or disuse of the poetic faculty : as he 
stepped downwards from the zenith of life, no shad- 
ow or chill came over it ; it was like the year of some 
genial climates, a perpetual season of verdure, bloom, 
and fruitfulness. As these works came out, I was 
rejoiced to see that he was unspoiled by the contro- 
versies in which he had allowed himself to become 
engaged ; that they had not given, to these better 
expressions of his genius, any tinge of misanthropy, 
or appearance of contracting and closing sympathies, 
any trace of an interest in his fellow-beings less large 
and free than in his earlier works. 

Before the appearance of his yack Tier, Cooper 



JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 8 1 

published, in 1845 ^-^^ the following year, a series of 
novels relating to the Anti-rent question, in which he 
took great interest. He thought that the disposition 
manifested in certain quarters to make concessions 
to what he deemed a denial of the rights of property 
was a first step in a most dangerous path. To dis- 
courage this disposition, he wrote Satanstoe, The 
Chainbearer, and The Red-skins. They are didac- 
tic in their design, and want the freedom of invention 
which belongs to Cooper's best novels ; but if they 
had been written by anybody but Cooper, — by a 
member of Congress, for example, or an eminent pol- 
itician of any class, — they would have made his rep- 
utation. It was said, I am told, by a distinguished 
jurist of our state, that they entitled the author to as 
high a place in law as his other works had won for 
him in literature. 

I had thought, in meditating the plan of this dis- 
course, to mention all the works of Mr. Cooper, but 
the length to which I have found it extending has 
induced me to pass over several written in the last 
ten years of his life, and to confine myself to those 
which best illustrate his literary character. The last 
of his novels was The Ways of the Hour, a work in 
which the objections he entertained to the trial by jury 
in civil causes were stated in the form of a narrative. 
4* 



82 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

It is a voluminous catalogue — that of Cooper's 
published works — but it comprises not all he wrote. 
He committed to the fire, without remorse, many of 
the fruits of his literary industry. It was under- 
stood, some years since, that he had a work ready 
for the press on the Middle States of the Union, 
principally illustrative of their social history ; but it 
has not been found among his manuscripts, and the 
presumption is that he must have destroyed it. He 
had planned a work on the Towns of Mmihattmi, for 
the publication of which he made arrangements with 
Mr. Putman of this city, and a part of which, already 
written, was in press at the time of his death. The 
printed part has since been destroyed by fire, but a 
portion of the manuscript was recovered. The work, 
I learn, will be completed by one of the family, who, 
within a few years past, has earned an honorable 
name among the authors of our country. Great as was 
the number of his works, and great as was the favor 
with which they were received, the pecuniary re- 
wards of his success were far less than has been gen- 
erally supposed — scarcely, as I am informed, a tenth 
part of what the common rumor made them. His 
fame was infinitely the largest acknowledgment which 
this most successful of American authors received 
for his labors. 



JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 8s 

The Ways of the Hour appeared in 1850. At 
this tiine his personal appearance was remarkable. 
He seemed in perfect health, and in the highest en- 
ergy and activity of his faculties. I have scarcely 
seen any man at that period of life on whom his 
years sat more lightly. His conversation had lost 
none of its liveliness, though it seemed somewhat 
more genial and forbearing in tone, and his spirits 
none of their elasticity. He was contemplating, I 
have since been told, another Leatherstocking tale, 
deeming that he had not yet exhausted the charac- 
ter ; and those who consider what new resources it 
yielded him in the Pathfinder and the Deerslayer, 
will readily conclude that he was not mistaken. 

The disease, however, by which he was removed, 
was even then impending over him, and not long 
afterwards his friends here were grieved to learn that 
his health was declining. He came to New York so 
changed that they looked at him with sorrow, and 
after a stay of some weeks, partly for the benefit of 
medical advice, returned to Cooperstown, to leave it 
no more. His complaint gradually gained strength, 
subdued a constitution originally robust, and finally 
passed into a confirmed dropsy. In August, 185 1, 
he was visited by his excellent and learned friend. Dr. 
Francis, a member of the weekly club which he had 



84 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

founded in the early part of his literary career. He 
found him bearing the sufferings of his disease with 
manly firmness, gav'e him such medical counsels as 
.the malady appeared to require, prepared him deli- 
cately for its fatal termination, and returned to New 
York with the most melancholy anticipations. In a 
few days afterwards, Cooper expired, amid the deep 
affliction of his family, on the 14th of September,_ 
the day before that on which he should have com- 
pleted his sixty-second year. He died, apparently 
without pain, in peace and religious hope. The rela- 
tions of man to his Maker, and to that state of being 
for which the present is but a preparation, had occu- 
pied much of his thoughts during his whole lifetime, 
and he crossed, with a serene composure, the myste- 
rious boundary which divides this life from the 
next. 

The departure of such a man, in the full strength 
of his faculties, — on whom the country had for thirty 
years looked as one of the permanent ornaments of 
its literature, and whose name had been so often as- 
sociated with praise, with renown, with controversy, 
with blame, but never with death, — diffused a univer- 
sal awe. It was as if an earthquake had shaken the 
ground on which we stood, and showed the grave 
opening by our path. In the general grief for his 



JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 85 

loss, his virtues only were remembered, and his fail- 
ings forgotten. 

Of his failings I have said little ; such as he had 
were obvious to all the world ; they lay on the sur- 
face of his character ; those who knew him least made 
. the most account of them. With a character so made 
up of positive qualities — a character so independent 
and uncompromising, and with a sensitiveness far 
more acute than he was willing to acknowledge, it is 
not surprising that occasions frequently arose to bring 
him, sometimes into friendly collision, and sometimes 
into graver disagreements and misunderstandings 
with his fellow-men. For his infirmities, his friends 
found an ample counterpoise in the generous sinceri- 
ty of his nature. He never thought of disguising his 
opinions, and he abhorred all disguise in others ; he 
did not even deign to use that show of regard towards 
those of whom he did not think well, which the world 
tolerates, and almost demands. A manly expression 
of opinion, however different from his own, command- 
ed his respect. Of his own works, he spoke with the 
same freedom as of the works of others ; and never 
hesitated to express his judgment of a book for the 
reason that it was written by himself; yet he could 
bear with gentleness any dissent from the estimate 
he placed on his own writings. His character was 



86 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

like the bark of the cinnamon, a rough and astringent 
rind without, and an intense sweetness within. Those 
who penetrated below the surface found a genial tem- 
per, warm affections, and a heart with ample place for 
his friends, their pursuits, their good name, their wel- 
fare. They found him a philanthropist, though not 
precisely after the fashion of the day; a religious 
man, most devout where devotion is most apt to be a 
feeling rather than a custom, in the household circle ; 
hospitable, and to the extent of his means liberal- 
handed in acts of charity. They found, also, that 
though in general he would as soon have thought of 
giving up an old friend as of giving up an opinion, he 
was not proof against testimony, and could part with 
a mistaken opinion as one parts with an old friend 
who has been proved faithless and unworthy. In 
short. Cooper was one of those who, to be loved, must 
be intimately known. 

Of his literary character I have spoken largely in 
the narrative of his life, but there are yet one or two 
remarks which must be made to do it justice. In that 
way of writing in which he excelled, it seems to me 
that he united in a pre-eminent degree, those qualities 
which enabled him to interest the largest number 
of readers. He wrote not for the fastidious, the over- 
refined, the morbidly delicate ; for these find in his 



JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 8/ 

genius something too robust for their liking — some- 
thing by which their sensibilities are too rudely- 
shaken ; but he wrote for mankind at large — for men 
and women in the ordinary healthful state of feel- 
ing — and in their admiration he found his reward. It 
is for this class that public libraries are obliged to 
provide themselves with an extraordinary number of 
copies of his works : the number in the Mercantile 
Library in this city, I am told, is forty. Hence it is, 
that he has earned a fame, wider, I think, than any 
author of modern times — wider, certainly, than any 
author, of any age, ever enjoyed in his lifetime. All 
his excellences are translatable — they pass readily 
into languages the least allied in their genius to that 
in which he wrote, and in them he touches the heart 
and kindles the imagination with the same power as 
in the original English. 

Cooper was not wholly without humor; it is 
sometimes found lurking in the dialogue of Harvey 
Birch, and of Leatherstocking ; but it forms no con- 
siderable element in his works ; and if it did, it would 
have stood in the way of his universal popularity, 
since of all qualities, it is the most difficult to trans- 
fuse into a foreign language. Nor did the effect he 
produced u,pon the reader depend on any grace of 
style -which would escape a translator of ordinary 



88 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

skill. With his style, it is true, he took great pains, 
and in his earlier works, I am told, sometimes altered 
the proofs sent from the printer so largely that they 
might be said to be written over. Yet he attained no 
special felicity, variety, or compass of expression. 
His style, however, answered his purpose ; it has de- 
fects, but it is m.anly and clear, and stamps on the 
mind of the reader the impression he intended to con- 
vey. I am not sure that some of the very defects of 
Cooper's novels do not add, by a certain force of con- 
trast, to their power over the mind. He is long in 
getting at the interest of his narrative. The progress 
of the plot, at first, is like that of one of his own ves- 
sels of war, slowly, heavily, and even awkwardly 
working out of a harbor. We are impatient and 
weary, but when the vessel is once in the open sea, 
and feels the free breath of heaven in her full sheets, 
our delight and admiration is all the greater at the 
grace, the majesty, and power with which she divides 
and bears down the waves, and pursues her course, 
at will, over the great waste of waters. 

Such are the works so widely read, and so uni- 
versally admired, in all the zones of the globe, and by 
men of every kindred and every tongue ; works which 
have made of those who dwell in remote latitudes, 
wanderers in our forests, and observers of our man- 



JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 89 

ners, and have inspired them with an interest in our 
history. A gentleman who had returned from Europe 
just before the death of Cooper, was asked what he 
found the people of the Continent doing. " They all 
are reading Cooper," he answered ; " in the little king- 
dom of Holland, with its three millions of inhabit- 
ants, I looked into four different translations of 
Cooper in the language of the country." A traveller, 
who has seen much of the middle classes of Italy, 
lately said to me, " I found that all they knew of 
America, and that was not little, they had learned 
from Cooper's novels ; from him they had learned 
the story of American liberty, and through him they 
had been introduced to our Washington; they had 
read his works till the shores of the Hudson, and the 
valleys of Westchester, and the banks of Otsego lake, 
had become to them familiar ground." 

Over all the countries into whose speech this 
great man's works have been rendered by the labors 
of their scholars, the sorrow of that loss which we 
deplore is now diffusing itself. Here we lament the 
ornament of our country, there they mourn the death 
of him who delighted the human race. Even now, 
while I speak, the pulse of grief which is passing 
through the nations has haply just reached some re- 
mote neighborhood ; the news of his death has been 



90 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

brought to some dwelling on the slopes of the An- 
des, or amidst the snowy wastes of the North, and the 
dark-eyed damsel of Chile, or the fair-haired maid of 
Norway, is sad to think that he whose stories of hero- 
ism and true love have so often kept her for hours 
from her pillow, lives no more. 

He is gone ! but the creations of his genius, fixed 
in living words, survive the frail material organs by 
which the words were first traced. They partake of 
a middle nature, between the deathless mind and 
the decaying body of which they are the common 
offspring, and are, therefore, destined to a duration, if 
not eternal, yet indefinite. The examples he has 
given in his glorious fictions, of heroism, honor, and 
truth, of large sympathies between man and man, of 
all that is good, great, and excellent, embodied in 
personages marked with so strong an individuality 
that we place them among our friends and favorites ; 
his frank and generous men, his gentle and noble 
women, shall live through centuries to come, and 
only perish with our language. I have said with our 
language ; but who shall say when it may be the 
fate of the English language to be numbered with 
the extinct forms of human speech.-* Who shall de- 
clare which of the present tongues of the civilized 
world will survive its fellows .'' It may be that some 



JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 91 

one of them, more fortunate than the rest, will long 
outlast them, in some undisturbed quarter of the 
globe, and in the midst of a new civilization, The 
creations of Cooper's genius, even now transferred 
to that language, may remain to be the delight of 
the nations through another great cycle of centuries, 
beginning after the English language and its contem- 
poraneous form of civilization shall have passed 
away. 



I 



1 



WASHINGTON IRVING. 



WASHINGTON IRVING. 

A DISCOURSE ON HIS LIFE, CHARACTER AND GENIUS, DELIV- 
ERED BEFORE THE NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY, AT 
THE ACADEMY OF MUSIC, IN NEW YORK, APRIL 3, 1S60. 

We have come together, my friends, on the birth- 
day of an illustrious citizen of our republic, but so re- 
cent is his departure from among us, that our assem- 
bling is rather an expression of sorrow for his death 
than of congratulation that such a man was born into 
the world. His admirable writings, the beautiful pro- 
ducts of his peculiar genius, remain to be the enjoy- 
ment of the present and future generations. We 
keep the recollection of his amiable and blameless 
life and his kindly manners, and' for these we give 
thanks ; but the thought will force itself upon us that 
the hght of his friendly eye is quenched, that we 
must no more hear his beloved voice nor take his 
welcome hand. It is as if some genial year had just 
closed and left us in frost and gloom ; its flowery 
spring, its leafy summer, its plenteous autumn, flown, 
never to return. Its gifts are strewn around us ; its 
harvests are in our garners ; but its season of bloom, 



96 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

and warmth, and fruitfulness is past. We look 
around us and see that tlie sunshine, which filled the 
the golden ear and tinged the reddening apple, 
brightens the earth no more. 

Twelve years since, the task was assigned me to 
deliver the funeral eulogy of Thomas Cole, the great 
father of landscape painting in America, the artist 
who first taught the pencil to portray, with the bold- 
ness of nature, our wild forests and lake shores, our 
mountain regions and the borders of our majestic riv- 
ers. Four years later I was bidden to express, in 
such terms as I could command, the general sorrow 
which was felt for the death of Fenimore Cooper, 
equally great and equally the leader of his country- 
men in a different walk of creative genius. Another 
grave has been opened, and he who has gone down 
to it, earlier than they in his labors and his fame, was, 
like them, foremost in the peculiar walk to which his 
genius attracted him. Cole was taken from us in the 
zenith of his manhood ; Cooper, when the sun of life 
had stooped from its meridian. In both instances 
the day was darkened by the cloud of death before 
the natural hour of its close ; but Irving was permit- 
ted to behold its light until, in the fulness of time 
and by the ordinary appointment of nature, it was 
carried below the horizon. 



WASHINGTON IRVING. 97 

Washington Irving was born in New York, on 
the third of April, 1783, but a few days after the 
news of the treaty with Great Britain, acknowledging 
our .independence, had been received, to the great 
contentment of the people. He opened his eyes to 
the light, therefore, just in the dawn of that Sab- 
bath of peace which brought rest to the land after a 
weary seven years' war — just as the city of which he 
was a native, and the republic of which he was yet to 
be the ornament, were entering upon a career of 
greatness and prosperity of which those who inhabi- 
ted them could scarce have dreamed. It seems 
fitting that one of the first births of the new peace, so 
welcome to the country, should be that of a genius as 
kindly and fruitful as peace itself, and destined to 
make the world better and happier by its gentle in- 
fluences. In one respect, those who were born at 
that time had the advantage of those who are edu- 
cated under the more vulgar influences of the pres- 
ent age. Before their eyes, were placed, in the pub- 
lic actions of the men who achieved our revolution, 
noble examples of steady rectitude, magnanimous 
self-denial, and cheerful self-sacrifice for the sake of 
their country. Irving came into the world when 
these great and virtuous men were in the prime of 
their manhood, and passed his youth in the midst of 
5 



98 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

that general reverence which gathered round them 
as they grew old. 

William Irving, the father of the great author, 
was a native of Scotland — one of a race in which the 
instinct of veneration is strong — and a Scottish wo- 
man was employed as a nurse in his household. It 
is related that one day while she was walking in the 
street with her little charge, then five years old, she 
saw General Washington in a shop, and entering, led 
up the boy, whom she presented as one to whom his 
name had been given. The general turned, laid his 
hand on the child's head, and gave him his smile and 
his blessing, little thinking that they were bes\owed 
upon his future biographer. The gentle pressure of 
that hand Irving always remembered, and that bless- 
ing, he believed, attended him through life. Who 
shall say what power that recollection may have had 
in keeping him true to high and generous aims ? 

At the time that Washington Irving was born, 
the city of New York contained scarcely more than 
twenty thousand inhabitants. During the war its 
population had probably diminished. The town was 
scarcely built up to Warren street ; Broadway, a lit- 
tle beyond, was lost among grassy pastures and till- 
ed fields ; the Park, in which now stands our City 
Hall, was an open common, and beyond it gleamed, 



WASHINGTON IRVING. 99 

in a hollow among the meadows, a little sheet of fresh 
water, the Kolch, from which a sluggish rivulet stole 
through the low grounds called Lispenard's Meadows, 
and, following the course of what is now Canal 
street, entered the Hudson. With the exception of 
the little corner of the island below the present City 
Hall, the rural character of the whole region was un- 
changed, and the fresh air of the country entered 
New York at every street. The town at that time 
contained a mingled population, drawn from different 
countries ; but the descendants of the old Dutch set- 
tlers formed a large proportion of the inhabitants, 
and these preserved many of their peculiar customs, 
and had not ceased to use the speech of their ances- 
tors at their fireside. Many of them lived in the 
quaint old houses, built of small yellow bricks from 
Holland, with their notched gable-ends on the street, 
which have since been swept away with the language 
of those who built them. 

In the surrounding country, along its rivers and 
beside its harbors, and in many parts far inland, the 
original character of the Dutch settlements was still 
less changed. Here they read their Bibles and said 
their prayers and listened to sermons in the ances- 
tral tongue. Remains of this language yet linger in 
a few neighborhoods; but in most, the common 



100 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

schools, and the irruptions of the Yankee race, and 
tlie growth of a population newly derived from 
Europe, have stifled the ancient utterances of New 
Amsterdam. I remember that, twenty years since, 
the market people of Bergen chattered Dutch in the 
steamers which brought them in the early morning 
to New York. I remember also that, about ten years 
before, there were families in the westernmost towns 
of Massachusetts where Dutch was still the house- 
hold tongue, and matrons of the English stock, mar- 
rying into them, were laughed at for speaking it so 
badly. 

It will be readily inferred that the isolation in 
which the use of a language, strange to the rest of 
the country, placed these people, would form them in a 
character of peculiar simplicity, in which there was a 
great deal that was quaint and not a little that would 
appear comic to their neighbors of the Anglo-Saxon 
stock. It was in .the midst of such a population, 
friendly and hospitable, wearing their faults on the out- 
side, and living in homely comfort on their fertile and 
ample acres, that the boyhood and early youth of Ir- 
ving were passed. He began, while yet a stripling, to 
wander about the surrounding country, for the love 
of rambling was the most remarkable peculiarity of 
that period of his life. He became, as he himself 



WASHINGTON IRVING. lOI 

writes, familiar with all the neighboring places fa- 
mous in history or fable ; knew every spot where a 
murder or a robbery had been committed or a ghost 
seen ; strolled into the villages, noted their customs 
and talked with their sages, a welcome guest doubt- 
less, with his kindly and ingenuous manners and the 
natural playful turn of his conversation. 

I dwell upon these particulars because they help 
to show how the mind of Irving was trained, and by 
what process he made himself master of the mate- 
rials afterward wrought into the forms we so much 
admire. It was in these rambles that his strong 
love of nature was awakened and nourished. Those 
who only know the island of New York as it now is, 
see few traces of the beauty it wore before it was 
levelled and smoothed from side to side for the build- 
er. Immediately without the little town, it was 
charmingly diversified with heights and hollows, 
groves alternating with sunny openings, shining 
tracks of rivulets, quiet country-seats with trim gar- 
dens, broad avenues of trees, and lines of pleached 
hawthorn hedges. I came to New York in 1825, 
and I well recollect how much I admired the shores 
of the Hudson above Canal street, where the dark 
rocks jutted far out in the water, with little bays be- 
tween, above which drooped forest trees overrun with 



102 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

wild vines. No less beautiful were the shores of the 
East River, where the orchards of the Stuyvesant es- 
tate reached to cliffs beetling over the water, and still 
further on were inlets between rocky banks bristling 
with red cedars. Some idea of this beauty may be 
formed from looking at what remains of the natural 
shore of New York island, where the tides of the East 
River rush to and fro by the rocky verge of Jones' 
Wood. 

Here wandered Irving in his yoiith, and allowed 
the aspect of that nature which he afterward portray- 
ed so well to engrave itself on his heart ; but his ex- 
cursions were not confined to this island. He became 
familiar with the banks of the Hudson, the extraor- 
dinary beauty of which he was the first to describe. 
He made acquaintance with the Dutch neighbor- 
hoods sheltered by its hills, Nyack, Haverstraw, Sing 
Sing, and Sleepy Hollow, and with the majestic 
Highlands beyond. His rambles in another direc- 
tion led him to ancient Communipaw, lying in its 
quiet recess by New York bay ; to the then peaceful 
Gowanus, now noisy with the passage of visitors to 
Greenwood and thronged with funerals ; to Hoboken, 
Horsimus and Paulus Hook, which has since become 
a city. A ferry-boat dancing on the rapid tides took 
him over to Brooklyn, now our flourishing and beau- 



WASHINGTON IRVING. IO3 

tiful neighbor city ; then a cluster of Dutch farms, 
whose possessors Hved in broad, low houses, with 
stoops in front, over-shadowed by trees. 

The generation with whom Irving grew up read 
the Spectator and the Rambler, the essays and tales 
of Mackenzie and those of Goldsmith ; the novels of 
the day were those of Richardson, Fielding and 
Smollett ; the religious world were occupied with the 
pages of Hannah More, fresh from the press, and 
with the writings of Doddridge ; politicians sought 
their models of style and reasoning in the speeches 
of Burke and the writings of Mackintosh and Junius. 
These were certainly masters of whom no pupil need- 
ed to be ashamed, but it can hardly be said that the 
style of Irving was formed in the school of any of 
them. His father's library was enriched with authors 
of the Elizabethan age, and he delighted, we are told, 
in reading Chaucer and Spenser. The elder of these 
great poets might have taught him the art of height- 
ening his genial humor with poetic graces, and from 
both he might have learned a freer mastery over his 
native English than the somewhat formal taste of that 
day encouraged. Cowper's poems, at that time, were 
in everybody's hands, and if his father had not those 
of Burns, we must believe that he was no Scotchman. 
I think we may fairly infer that if the style of Irving 



I04 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

took a bolder range than was allowed in the way of 
writing which prevailed when he was a youth, it was 
owing, in a great degree, to his studies in the poets, 
and especially in those of the earlier English litera- 
ture. 

He owed little to the schools, though he began 
to attend them early. His first instructions were 
given when he was between four and six years old, 
by Mrs. Ann Kilmaster, at her school in Ann street, 
who seems to have had some difficulty in getting him 
through the alphabet. In 1 789, he was transferred to 
a school in Fulton street, then called Partition street, 
kept by Benjamin Romaine, who had been a soldier 
in the Revolution — a sensible man and a good dis- 
ciplinarian, but probably an indifferent scholar — and 
here he continued till he was fourteen years of age. 
He was a favorite with the master, but preferred read- 
ing to regular study. At ten years of age be delighted 
in the wild tales of Ariosto, as translated by Hoole ; 
at eleven, he was deep in books of voyages and trav- 
els which he took to school and read by stealth. At 
that time he composed with remarkable ease and 
fluency, and exchanged tasks with the other boys, 
writing their compositions, while they solved his prob- 
lems in arithmetic, which he detested. At the age of 
thirteen he tried his hand at composing a play, which 



WASHINGTON IRVING. 



los 



was performed by children at a friend's house, and 
of which he afterward forgot every part, even the 
title. 

Romaine gave up teaching in 1797, and in that 
year Irving entered a school kept in Beekman street, 
by Jonathan Irish, probably the most accomplished 
of his instructors. He left this school in March, 
1798, but continued for a time to receive private les- 
sons from the same teacher, at home. Dr. Francis, 
in his pleasant reminiscences of Irving's early life, 
speaks of him as preparing to enter Columbia Col- 
lege, and as being prevented by the state of his 
health ; but it is certain that an indifference to the 
acquisition of learning had taken possession of him 
at that age, which he afterward greatly regretted. 

At the age of sixteen he entered his name as a 
student at law in the office of Josiah Ogden Hoff- 
man, an eminent advocate, who, in later life, became 
a judge in one of our principal tribunals. It was 
while engaged in his professional studies that he 
made his first appearance as an author. I should 
have mentioned, among the circumstances that fa- 
vored the unfolding of his literary capacities, that 
two of his elder brothers were men of decided liter- 
ary tastes, William Irving, some seventeen years his 
senior, and Dr. Peter Irving, who, in the year 1802, 
5* 



I06 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

founded a daily paper in New York, at a time when a 
daily paper was not, as now, an enterprise requiring 
a large outlay of capital, but an experiment that 
might be tried and abandoned with little risk. Dr. 
Irving established the Moi'ning Chronicle, and his 
younger brother contributed a series of essays, bear- 
ing the signature of Jonathan Oldstyle, of which Mr. 
Duyckinck, whose judgment I willingly accept, says 
that they show how early he acquired the style which 
so much charms us in his later writings. 

In 1804, having reached the age of twenty-one, 
Irving, alarmed by an increasing weakness of the 
chest, visited Europe for the sake of his health. He 
sailed directly to the south of France, landed at Bor- 
deaux in May, and passed two months in Genoa, 
where he embarked for Messina, in search of a softer 
climate than any to be found on the Italian penin- 
sula. While at Messina, he saw the fleet of Nelson 
sweeping by that port on its way to fight the great 
naval battle of Trafalgar. He made the tour of 
Sicily, and crossing from Palermo to Naples, pro- 
ceeded to Rome. Here he formed the acquaintance 
of Washington Allston, who was tlien entering on a 
career of art as extraordinary as that of Irving in lit- 
erature. With Allston he made long rambles in the 
picturesque neighborhood of that old city, visited the 



WASHINGTON IRVING. IO7 

galleries of its palaces and villas, and studied their 
works of art with a delight that rose to enthusiasm. 
He thought of the dry pursuit of the law which await- 
ed his return to America, and for which he had no 
inclination, and almost determined to be a painter. 
Allston encouraged him in this disposition, and to- 
gether they planned the scheme of a life devoted to 
the pursuit of art. It was fortunate for the world 
that, as Irving reflected on the matter, doubts arose 
in his mind which tempered his enthusiasm, and led 
him to a different destiny. The two friends separa- 
ted, each to take his own way to renown — Allston to 
become one of the greatest of painters, and Irving to 
take his place among the greatest of authors. Leav- 
ing Italy, Irving passed through Switzerland to 
France, resided in Paris several months, travelled 
through Flanders and Holland, went to England, and 
returned to his native country in 1806, after an ab- 
sence of two years. 

At the close of the year he was admitted to prac- 
tice as an attorney-at-law. He opened an office, but 
it could not be said that he ever became a practition- 
er. He began the year 1807 with the earliest of those 
literary labors which have won him the admiration of 
the world. On the twenty-fourth of January appear- 
ed, in the form of a small pamphlet, the first number 



I08 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

of a periodical entitled Sabnagjindi, the joint produc- 
tion of himself, his brother William, and James K. 
Paulding. The elder brother contributed the poetry, 
with hints and outlines for some of the essays, but 
nearly all the prose was written by the two younger 
associates. 

William Irving, however, had talent enough to 
have taken a more important part in the work. He 
was a man of wit, well educated, well informed, and 
author of many clever things written for the press, 
in a vein of good-natured satire, and published with- 
out his name. He was held in great esteem on ac- 
count of his personal character, and had great weight 
in Congress, of which he was for some years a mem- 
ber.* 

When Salmagundi appeared, the quaint old 
Dutch town in which Irving was born had become 
transformed to a comparatively gay metropolis. Its 
population of twenty thousand souls had enlarged to 
more than eighty thousand, although its aristocratic 
class had yet their residences in what now seems to 
us the narrow space between the Battery and Wall 
street. The modes and fashions of Europe were im- 
ported fresh and fresh. Salmagundi speaks of leather 

* See a brief but well written memoir of William Irving, by Dr. 
Berrian. 



WASHINGTON IRVING. IO9 

breeches as all the rage for a morning dress, and 
flesh-colored smalls for an evening party. Gay equi- 
pages dashed through the streets. A new theatre had 
risen in Park Row, on the boards of which Cooper, 
one of the finest of declaimers, was performing to 
crowded houses. The churches had multiplied faster 
than the places of amusement ; other public build- 
ings of a magnificence hitherto unknown, including 
our present City Hall, had been erected ; Tammany 
Hall, fresh from the hands of the builder, overlooked 
the Park. We began to affect a taste for pictures, 
and the rooms of Michael Paff, the famous German 
picture dealer in Broadway, were a favorite lounge 
for such connoisseurs as we then had, who amused 
themselves with making him talk of Michael Angelo. 
Ballston Springs were the great fashionable watering- 
place of the country, to which resorted the planters 
of the South with splendid equipages and troops of 
shining blacks in livery. 

Salniagtmdi satirized the follies and ridiculed the 
humors of the time with great prodigality of wit and 
no less exuberance of good nature. In form it re- 
sembles the Tatler, and that numerous brood of pe- 
riodical papers to which the success of the Tatler 
and Spectator gave birth ; but it is in no sense an im- 
itation. Its gayety is its own ; its style of humor is 



no ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

not that of Addison nor Goldsmith, though it has all 
the genial spirit of theirs ; nor is it borrowed from any 
other writer. It is far more frolicsome and joyous, 
yet tempered by a native gracefulness. Salmagundi 
was manifestly written without the fear of criticism 
before the eyes of the authors, and to this sense of 
perfect freedom in the exercise of their genius is 
probably owing the charm and delight with which 
we still read it. Irving never seemed to place 
much value on the part he contributed to this work, 
yet I doubt whether he ever excelled some of those 
papers in Salviagwidi which bear the most evident 
marks of his style ; and Paulding, though he has since 
acquired a reputation by his other writings, can hard- 
ly be said to have written anything better than the 
best of those which are ascribed to his pen. 

Just before Sahnagtmdi appeared, several of the 
authors who gave the literature of England its pres- 
ent character had begun to write. For five years the 
quarterly issues of the EdhibiLvgli. Review, then in 
the most brilliant period of its existence, had been 
before the public. Hazlitt had taken his place among 
the authors, and John Foster had published his es- 
says. Of the poets, Rogers, Campbell and Moore 
were beginning to be popular ; Wordsworth had pub- 
lished his Lyrical Ballads ; Scott, his Lay of the Last 



WASHINGTON IRVING. Ill 

Minstrel; Southey, his Madoc ; and Joanna Baillie 
two volumes of her plays. In this revival of the crea- 
tive power in literature it is pleasant to see that our 
own country took part, contributing a work of a char- 
acter as fresh and original as any they produced on 
the other side of the Atlantic. 

Nearly two years afterward, in the autumn of 
1809, appeared in the Evening Post, addressed to the 
humane, an advertisement requesting information con- 
cerning a small elderly gentleman named Knicker- 
bocker, dressed in a black coat and cocked hat, who 
had suddenly left his lodgings at the Columbian Ho- 
tel in Mulberry street, and had not been heard of 
afterward. In the beginning of November, a Travel- 
ler communicated to the same journal the information 
that he had seen a person answering to this descrip- 
tion, apparently fatigued with his journey, resting by 
the road-side a little north of Kingsbridge, Ten days 
later, Seth Handaside, the landlord of the Columbian 
Hotel, gave notice, through the same journal, that he 
had found in the missing gentleman's chamber "a 
curious kind of written book," which he should print 
by way of reimbursing himself for what his lodger 
owed him. In December following, Inskeep and 
Bradford, booksellers, published Diedrich Knicker- 
bocker's History of New York. 



112 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

Salinagwidi had prepared the public to receive 
this work with favor, and Seth Handaside had no 
reason to regret having undertaken its publication. I 
recollect well its early and immediate popularity. I 
was then a youth in college, and having committed to 
memory a portion of it to repeat as a declamation be- 
fore my class, I was so overcome with laughter, when 
I appeared on the floor, that I was unable to proceed, 
and drew upon myself the rebuke of the tutor. 

I have just read this History of New York over 
agam, and I found myself no less delighted than 
when I first turned its pages in my early youth. 
When I compare it with other works of wit and hu- 
mor of a similar length, I find that, unlike most of 
them, it carries forward the reader to the conclusion 
without weariness or satiety, so unsought, spontane- 
ous, self-suggested are the wit and the humor. The 
author makes us laugh, because he can no more 
help it than we can help laughing. Scott, in one of 
his letters, compared the humor of this work to that 
of Swift. The rich vein of Irving's mirth is of a qual- 
ity quite distinct from the dry drollery of Swift, but 
they have this in common, that they charm by the 
utter absence of effort, and this was probably the 
ground of Scott's remark. A critic in the Londoji 
Quarterly, some years after its appearance, spoke of 



WASHINGTON IRVING. II3 

it as a " tantalizing book," on account of his inability 
to understand what he called " the point of many of 
the allusions in this political satire." I fear he must 
have been one of those respectable persons who find 
it difficult to understand a joke unless it be accompa- 
nied with a commentary opening and explaining it to 
the humblest capacity. Scott found no such diffi- 
culty. " Our sides," he says, in a letter to Mr. Bre- 
voort, a friend of Irving, written just after he had 
read the book, " are absolutely sore with laughing." 
The mirth of the "History of New York" is of the 
most transparent sort, and the author, even in the 
later editions, judiciously abstained from any attempt 
to make it more intelligible by notes. 

I find in this work more manifest traces than in 
his other writings of what Irving owed to the earlier 
authors in our language. The quaint poetic coloring, 
and often the phraseology, betray the disciple of 
Chaucer and Spenser. We are conscious of a flavor 
of the olden time, as of a racy wine of some rich 
vintage — 

" Cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth." 

I will not say that there are no passages in this 
work which are not worthy of their context ; that we 
do not sometimes meet with phraseology which we 



114 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

could wish changed, that the wit does not some- 
times run wild and drop here and there a jest which 
we could willingly spare. We forgive, we overlook, 
we forget all this as we read, in consideration of the 
entertainment we have enjoyed, and of that which 
beckons us onward in the next page. Of all mock- 
heroic works, Knickerbocker s History of New York 
is the gayest, the airiest, and the least tiresome. 

In 1848 Mr. Irving issued an edition of this work, 
to which he prefixed what he called an '* Apology," 
intended in part as an answer to those who thought 
he had made too free with the names of our old 
Dutch families. To speak frankly, I do not much 
wonder that the descendants of the original founders 
of New Amsterdam should have hardly known 
whether to laugh or look grave on finding the names 
of their ancestors, of whom they never thought but 
with respect, now connected with ludicrous associa- 
tions, by a wit of another race. In one of his excel- 
lent historical discourses Mr. Verplanck had gently 
complained of this freedom, expressing himself, as he 
said, more in sorrow than in anger. Even the sor- 
row, I believe, must have long since wholly passed 
away, when it is seen how little Irving's pleasant- 
ries have detracted from the honor paid to the early 
history of our city — at all events, I do not see how 



WASHINGTON IRVING. II5 

it could survive Irving's good-humored and graceful 
Apology. 

It was not long after the publication of the His- 
tory of Neiv York that Irving abandoned the profes- 
sion of law, for which he had so decided a distaste as 
never to have fully tried his capacity for pursuing it. 
Two of his brothers were engaged in commerce, and 
they received him as a silent partner. He did not, 
however, renounce his literary occupations. He 
wrote, in 18 10, a memoir of Campbell, the poet, pre- 
fixed to an edition of the writings of that author, 
which appeared in Philadelphia ; and in 1 8 1 3 and the 
following year, employed himself as editor of the An- 
alectic Magazine, published in the same city ; making 
the experiment of his talent for a vocation to which 
men of decided literary tastes in this country are 
strongly inclined to betake themselves. Those who 
remember this magazine cannot have forgotten that 
it was a most entertaining miscellany, partly com- 
piled from English publications, mostly periodicals, 
and partly made up of contributions of some of our 
own best writers. Paulding wrote for it a series of 
biographical accounts of the naval commanders of the 
United States, which added greatly to its popular- 
ity ; and Verplanck contributed memoirs of Commo- 
dore Stewart and General Scott, Barlow, the poet. 



Il6 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

and other distinguished Americans, which were re- 
ceived with favor. TJie Life of Campbell ,, with the 
exception perhaps of some less important contribu- 
tions to the magazine, is the only published work of 
Irving between the appearance of the History of 
Neiv York, in 1809, and that of the Sketch Book, in 
1819. 

It was during this interval that an event took 
place which had a marked influence on Irving's fu- 
ture life, affected the character of his writings, and, 
now that the death of both parties allows it to be spo- 
ken of without reserve, gives a peculiar interest to 
his persohal history. He became attached to a 
young lady whom he was to have married. She died 
unwedded, in the flower of her age ; there was a sor- 
rowful leave-taking between her and her lover, as 
the grave was about to separate them on the eve of 
what should have been her bridal ; and Irving, ever 
after, to the close of his life, tenderly and faithfully 
cherished her memory. In one of the biographical 
notices published immediately after Irving's death, 
an old, well-worn copy of the Bible is spoken of, 
which was kept lying on the table in his chamber, 
within reach of his bedside, bearing her name on the 
title page in a delicate female hand — a relic which 
we may presume to have been his constant compan- 



WASHINGTON IRVING. WJ 

ion. Those ' who are fond of searching, in the bio- 
graphies of eminent men, for the circumstances 
which determined the bent of their genius, find in 
this sad event, and the cloud it threw over the hope- 
ful and cheerful period of early manhood, an expla- 
nation of the transition from the unbounded playful- 
ness of the History of Nezv York to the serious, ten- 
der and meditative vein of the Sketch Book. 

In 1815, soon after our second peace with Great 
Britain, Irving again sailed for Europe, and fixed 
himself at Liverpool, where a branch of the large 
commercial house to which he belonged was estab- 
lished. His old love of rambling returned upon him ; 
he wandered first into Wales, and over some of the 
finest counties of England, and then northward to 
the sterner region of the Scottish Highlands. His 
memoir of Campbell had procured him the acquaint- 
ance and friendship of that poet. Campbell gave 
him, more than a year after his arrival in England, a 
letter of introduction to Scott, who, already acquaint- 
ed with him by his writings, welcomed him warmly to 
Abbotsford, and made him his friend for life. Scott 
sent a special message to Campbell, thanking him for 
having made him known to Irving. " He is one of 
the best and pleasantest acquaintances," said Scott, 
" that I have made this many a day." 



Il8 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

In the same year that he visited Abbotsford his 
brothers failed. The changes which followed the 
peace of 1815, swept away their fortunes and his to- 
gether, and he was now to begin the world anew. 

In 1 8 19, he began to publish the Sketch Book. 
It was written in England and sent over to New 
York, where it was issued by Van Winkle, in octavo 
numbers containing from seventy to a hundred pages. 
In the preface he remarked that he was " unsettled 
in his abode," that he had " his cares and vicissi- 
tudes," and could not, therefore, give these papers 
the " tranquil attention necessary to finished compo- 
sition." Several of them were copied with praise in 
the London Literary Gazette, and an intimation was 
conveyed to the author, that some person in London 
was about to publish them entire. He preferred to 
do this himself, and accordingly offered the work to 
the famous bookseller, Murray. Murray was slow in 
giving the matter his attention, and Irving, after a 
reasonable delay, wrote to ask that the copy which 
he had left with him might be returned. It was sent 
back with a note, pleading excess of occupation, the 
great cross of all eminent booksellers, and alleging 
the " want of scope in the nature of the work," as a 
reason for declining it. This was discouraging, but 
Irving had the enterprise to print the first volume in 



- WASHINGTON IRVING. II9 

London, at his own risk. It was issued by John Mil- 
ler, and was well received, but a month afterward the 
publisher failed. Immediately Sir Walter Scott came 
to London and saw Murray, who allowed himself to 
be persuaded, the more easily, doubtless on account 
of the partial success of the first volume, that the 
work had more " scope " than he supposed, and pur- 
chased the copyright of both volumes for two hun- 
dred pounds, which he afterward liberally raised to 
four hundred. 

Whoever compares the Sketch Book with the His- 
tory of New York might at first, perhaps, fail to rec- 
ognize it as the work of the same hand, so much 
graver and more thoughful is the strain in which it is 
written. A more attentive examination, however, 
shows that the humor in the lighter parts is of the 
same peculiar and original cast, wholly unlike that of 
any author who ever wrote, a humor which Mr. 
Dana happily characterized as " a fanciful playing 
with common things, and here and there beautiful 
touches, till the ludicrous becomes half picturesque." 
Yet one cannot help perceiving that the author's 
spirit had been sobered since he last appeared before 
the public, as if the shadow of a great sorrow had 
fallen upon it. The greater number of the papers 
are addressed to our deeper sympathies and some of 



I20 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

them, as, for example, the Broken Heart, The Widow 
and Her Son, and Rural Funerals, dwell upon the 
saddest themes. Only in two of them — Rip Van 
Winkle and the Legend of Sleepy Hollow — does he 
lay the reins loose on the neck of his frolicsome 
fancy, and allow it to dash forward without restraint ; 
and these rank among the most delightful and popu- 
lar tales ever written. In our country they have 
been read, I believe, by nearly everybody who can. 
read at all. 

The Sketch Book, and the two succeeding works 
of Irving, Bracebridge Hall and the Tales of a Trav- 
eller, abound with agreeable pictures of English life, 
seen under favorable lights and sketched with a 
friendly pencil. Let me say here, that it was not to 
pay court to the English that he thus described them 
and their country ; it was because he could not de- 
scribe them otherwise. It was the instinct of his 
mind to attach itself to the contemplation of the good 
and the beautiful, wherever he found them, and to 
turn away from the sight of what was evil, misshapen 
and hateful. His was not a nature to pry for faults, 
or disabuse the world of good-natured mistakes ; he 
looked for virtue, love and truth among men, and 
thanked God that he found them in such large meas- 
ure. If there are touches of satire in his writings, 



WASHINGTON IRVING. 121 

he is the best-natured and most amiable of satirists, 
amiable beyond Horace ; and in his irony — for there 
is a vein of playful irony running through many of his 
works — there is no tinge of bitterness. 

I rejoice, for my part, that we have had such a 
writer as Irving to bridge over the chasm between the 
two great nations — that an illustrious American lived 
so long in England, and was so much beloved there, 
and sought so earnestly to bring the people of the 
two countries to a better understanding with each 
other, and to wean them from the animosities of nar- 
row minds. I am sure that there is not a large-mind- 
ed and large-hearted man in all our country who can 
read over the Sketch Book and the other writings of 
Irving, and disown one of the magnanimous senti- 
ments they express with regard to England, or desire 
to abate the glow of one of his warm and cheerful 
pictures of English life. Occasions will arise, no 
doubt, for. saying some things in a less accommoda- 
ting spirit, and there are men enough on both sides 
of . the Atlantic who can say them ; but Irving was 
not sent into the world on that errand. A different 
work was assigned him in the very structure of his 
mind, and the endowments of his heart — a work of 
peace and brotherhood, and I will say for him that he 
nobly performed it. 



122 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

Let me pause here to speak of what I believe to 
ha\'e been the influence of the Sketch Book upon 
American hterature. At the time it appeared, the 
periodical lists of new American publications were 
extremely meagre, and consisted, to a great extent, 
of occasional pamphlets and dissertations on the 
questions of the day. The works of greater preten- 
sion were, for the most part, crudely and languidly 
made up, and destined to be little read. A work like 
the Sketch Book, welcomed on both sides of the At- 
lantic, showed the possibility of an American author 
acquiring a fame bounded only by the limits of his 
own language, and gave an example of the qualities 
by which it might be won. Within two years after- 
ward, we had Cooper's Spy and Dana's Idle Man; 
the press of our country began, by degrees, to teem 
with works composed with a literary skill and a spir- 
ited activity of intellect until then little known 
among us. Every year the assertion that we had no 
literature of our own became less and less true ; and 
now, when we look over a list of new works by native 
authors, we find, with an astonishment amounting 
almost to alarm, that the most voracious devourer of 
books must despair of being able to read half those 
which make a fair claim upon his attention. It was 
since 1819 that the great historians of our country, 



WASHINGTON IRVING. 1 23 

whose praise is in the mouths of all the nations, be- 
gan to write. One of them built up the fabric of his 
fame long after Irving appeared as an author, and 
slept with Herodotus two years before Irving's 
death ; another of the band lives yet to be the orna- 
ment of the association before which I am called to 
speak, and is framing the annals of his country into a 
work for future ages. Within that period has arisen 
among us the class who hold vast multitudes spell- 
bound in motionless attention by public discourses, 
the most perfect of their kind, such as make the fame 
of Everett. Within that period our theologians have 
learned to write with the elegance and vivacity of the 
essayists. We had but one novelist before the era 
of the Sketch Book; their number is now beyond 
enumeration by any but a professed catalogue-maker, 
and many of them are read in every cultivated form 
of human speech. Those whom we acknowledge as 
our poets — one of whom is the special favorite of our 
brothers in language, who dwell beyond the sea — ap- 
peared in the world of letters and won its attention 
after Irving had become famous. We have wits, and 
humorists, and amusing essayists, authors of some of 
the airiest and most graceful compositions of the 
present century, and we owe them to the new im- 
pulse given to our literature in 18 19. I look abroad 



124 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

on these stars of our literary firmament — some 
crowded together with their minute points of light in 
a galaxy — some standing apart in glorious constella- 
tions ; I recognize Arcturus, and Orion, and Perseus, 
and the glittering jewels of the Southern Crown, and 
the Pleiades shedding sweet influences ; but the 
Evening Star, the soft and serene .light that glowed 
in their van, the precursor of them all, has sunk be- 
low the horizon. The spheres, meantime, perform 
their appointed courses ; the same motion which 
lifted them up to the mid-sky bears them onward to 
their setting ; and they, too, like their bright leader, 
must soon be carried by it below the earth. 

Irving went to Paris in 1820, where he passed the 
remainder of the year and part of the next, and where 
he became acquainted with the poet Moore, who fre- 
quently mentions him in his Diary. Moore and he 
were much in each other's company ; and the poet has 
left on record an expression of his amazement at the 
rapidity with ^Nhich. Braced ridge Hall, was composed — 
one hundred and thirty pages in ten days. The win- 
ter of 1822 found him in Dresden. In that year was 
published Bracebridge Hall, the groundwork of which 
is a charming description of country life in England, 
interspersed with narratives, the scene of which is laid 
in other countries. Of these, the Norman tale of 



WASHINGTON IRVING. 1 25 

Annette Delarbre seems to me the most beautiful 
and affecting thing of its kind in all his works ; so 
beautiful, indeed, that I can hardly see how he who 
has once read it can resist the desire to read it again. 
In Bracebridge Hall we have the Stout Gentleman, 
full of certain minute paintings of familiar objects, 
where not a single touch is thrown in that does not 
heighten the comic effect of the narrative. If I am 
not greatly mistaken, the most popular novelists of 
the clay have learned from this pattern the skill with 
which they have wrought up some of their most strik- 
ing passages, both grave and gay. In composing 
Bracebridge Hall, Irving showed that he had not for- 
gotten his native country ; and in the pleasant tale of 
Dolph Heyliger he went back to the banks of that 
glorious river beside which he was born. 

In 1823, Irving, still a wanderer, returned to Paris, 
and, in the year following, gave the world his Tales of 
a Traveller. Murray, in the mean time, had become 
fully weaned from the notion that Irving's writings 
lacked the quality which he called " scope," for he had 
paid a thousand guineas for the copyright of Brace- 
bridge Hall, and now offered fifteen hundred pounds 
for the Tales of a Traveller, which Irving 'accepted. 
" He might have had two thousand," says Moore, but 
this assembly will not, I hope, think the worse of 



126 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

him, if it be acknowledged that the world contained 
men who were sharper than he at driving a bargain. 
The Talcs of a Traveller are most remarkable for 
their second part, entitled Bncktho)'7ie and his Friends, 
in which the author introduces us to literary life in its 
various aspects, as he had observed it in London, and 
to the relations in which authors at that time stood to 
the booksellers. His sketches of the different person- 
ages are individual, characteristic and diverting, yet 
with what a kindly pencil they are all drawn ! His 
good nature overspreads and harmonizes everything, 
like the warm atmosphere which so much delights us 
in a painting. 

Irving, still "unsettled in his abode," passed the 
winter of 1825 in the south of France. When you 
are in that region you see the snowy summits of the 
Spanish Pyrenees looking down upon you; Spanish 
visitors frequent the watering-places ; Spanish ped- 
dlers, in their handsome costume, offer you the fabrics 
of Barcelona and Valencia ; Spanish peasants come 
to the fairs ; the traveller feels himself almost in 
Spain already, and is haunted by the desire of visit- 
ing that remarkable country. To Spain, Irving went 
in the latter part of the year, invited by our Minister 
at Madrid, Alexander H. Everett, at the suggestion 
of Mr. Rich, the American Consul, an industrious 



Washington irving. 127 

and intelligent collector of Spanish works relating 
to America. His errand was to translate into En- 
glish the documents relating to the discovery and 
early history of our Continent, collected by the re- 
search of Navarrete. He passed the winter of 1826 
at the Spanish capital, as the guest of Mr. Rich ; the 
following season took him to Granada, and he lin- 
gered awhile in that beautiful region, profusely wa- 
tered by the streams that break from the Snowy 
Ridge. In 1827, he again visited the south of Spain, 
gathering materials for his Life of Columbits, 
which, immediately after his arrival in Spain, he had 
determined to write, instead of translating the docu- 
ments of Navarrete. In Spain he began and finished 
that work, after having visited the places associated 
with the principal events in the life of his hero. 
Murray was so well satisfied with its "scope" that he 
gave him three thousand guineas for the copyright, 
and laid it before the public in 1828. Like the other 
works of Irving, it was published here at the same 
time as in London. 

The Life and Voyages of Christopher Coluin'hus 
placed Irving among the historians, for the biography 
of that great discoverer is a part, and a remarkable 
part, of the history of the world. Of what was strict- 
ly and simply personal in his adventures, much, of 



128 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

course, has passed into irremediable oblivion ; what 
was both personal and historical is yet outstanding 
above the shadow that has settled upon the rest. 
The work of Irving was at once in everybody's hands 
and eagerly read. Navarrete vouched for its histori- 
cal accuracy and completeness. Jeffrey declared 
that no work could ever take its place. It was writ- 
ten with a strong love of the subject, and to this it 
owes much of its power over the reader. Columbus 
was one of those who, with all their faculties occu- 
pied by one great idea, and bent on making it a 
practical reality, are looked upon as crazed, and 
pitied and forgotten if they fail ; but if they succeed, 
are venerated as the glory of their age. The poetic 
elements of his character and history, the grandeur 
and mystery of his design, his prophetic sagacity, his 
hopeful and devout courage, and his disregard of the 
ridicule of meaner intellects took a strong hold on 
the mind of Irving, and formed the inspiration of the 
work. 

Mr. Duyckinck gives, on the authority of one 
who knew Irving intimately, an instructive anecdote 
relating to the Life of Cohtvtbtis. When the work 
was nearly finished it was put into the hands of 
Lieutenant Slidell Mackenzie, himself an agreeable 
writer, then on a visit to Spain, who read it with a 



WASHINGTON IRVING. 1 29 

view of giving a critical opinion of its merits. " It is 
quite perfect," said he, on returning the manuscript, 
" except the style, and that is unequal." The re- 
mark made such an impression on the mind of the 
author that he wrote over the whole narrative with 
the view of making the style more uniform, but he 
afterward thought that he had not improved it. 

In this I have no doubt that Irving was quite right, 
and that it would have been better if he had never 
touched the work after he had brought it to the state 
which satisfied his individual judgment. An author 
can scarce commit a greater error than to alter 
what he writes, except when he has a clear percep- 
tion that the alteration is for the better, and can 
make it with as hearty a confidence in himself as he 
felt in giving the work its first shape. What strikes 
me as an occasional defect in the Life of Columbus is 
this elaborate uniformity of style — a certain prismatic 
coloring in passages where absolute simplicity would 
have satisfied us better. It may well be supposed that 
Irving originally wrote some parts of the work with 
the quiet plainness of a calm relater of facts, and oth- 
ers, with the spirit and fire of one who had become 
warmed with his subject, and this probably gave oc- 
casion to what was said of the inequality of the style. 
The attempt to elevate the diction of the simpler por- 



130 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

tions, we may suppose, marred what Irving after- 
ward perceived had really been one of the merits of 
the work. 

In the spring of 1829, Irving made another visit to 
the south of Spain collecting materials from which he 
afterward composed some of his most popular works. 
When the traveller now visits Granada and is taken 
to the Alhambra, his guide will say, " Here is one of 
the curiosities of the place ; this is the chamber oc- 
cupied by Washington Irving," and he will show an 
apartment, from the windows of which you have a 
view of the Genii, with the mountain peaks overlook- 
ing it, and hear the murmur of many mountain brooks 
at once, as they hurry to the plain. In July of the 
same year, he repaired to London, where he was to 
act as Secretary of the American Legation. We had 
at that time certain controversies with the British 
government which were the subject of negotiation. 
Irving took great interest in these, and in some let- 
ters which I saw at the time, stated the points in dis- 
pute at considerable length and with admirable meth- 
od and perspicuity. In London he published his 
Chronicles of the Conquest of Granada, one of the 
most delightful of his works, an exact history, — for 
such it is admitted to be by those who have searched 
most carefully the ancient records of Spain, — yet so 



WASHINGTON IRVING. 131 

full of personal incident, so diversified with surprising 
turns of fortune, and these wrought up with such pic- 
turesque effect, that, to use an expression of Pope, a 
young lady might read it by mistake for a romance. 
In 183 1, he gave the world another work on Spanish 
history, the Voyages of the Companions of Cohimbus, 
and in the year following, the Alhambra, which is an- 
other Sketch Book, with the scenes laid in Spain. 

While in Spain, Irving had planned a Life of Cor- 
tez, the Conqueror of Mexico, and collected the facts 
from which it was to be written. When, afterward, 
he had actually begun the composition of the work, 
he happened to learn that Prescott designed to write 
the History of the Mexican Conquest, and immediately 
he desisted. It was his intention to interweave with 
the narrative, descriptions of the ancient customs of 
the aborigines, such as their modes of warfare and 
their gorgeous pageants, by way of relief to the san- 
guinary barbarities of the Conquest. He saw what 
rich materials of the picturesque these opened to 
him, and if he had accomplished his plan, he would 
probably have produced one of his most popular 
works. 

In 1832, Irving returned to New York. He re- 
turned, after an absence of seventeen years, to find 
■his native city doubled in population ; its once quiet 



132 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

waters alive with sails and furrowed by steamers 
passing to and fro ; its wharves crowded with masts ; 
the heights which surround it, and which he remem- 
bered wild and solitary and lying in forest, now 
crowned with stately country seats, or with dwellings 
clustered in villages, and everywhere the activity and 
bustle of a prosperous and hopeful people. And he, 
too, how had he returned ? The young and compar- 
atively obscure author, whose works had only found 
here and there a reader in England, had achieved a 
fame as wide as the civilized world. All the trophies 
he had won in this field he brought home to lay at 
the feet of his country. Meanwhile all the country 
was moved to meet him ; the rejoicing was universal 
that one who had represented us so illustriously 
abroad was henceforth to live among us. 

Irving hated public dinners, but he was forced to 
accept one pressed upon him by his enthusiastic 
countrymen. It was given at the City Hotel on the 
30th of May, Chancellor Kent presiding, and the 
most eminent citizens of New York assembling at the 
table. I remember the accounts of this festivity 
reaching me as I was wandering in Illinois hovering 
on the skirts of the Indian war, in a region now pop- 
ulous, but then untilled and waste, and I could only 
write to Irving and ask leave to add my voice to the 



WASHINGTON IRVING. 1 33 

general acclamation. In his address at the dinner, 
Chancellor Kent welcomed the historian of New Am- 
sterdam back to his native city ; and Irving, in reply, 
poured forth his heart in the warmest expressions of 
delight at finding himself again among his country- 
men and kindred, in a land of sunshine and freedom 
and hope. " I am asked," he said, " how long I 
mean to remain here. They know little of my heart 
who can ask me this question. I answer, as long as 
I live." 

The instinct of rambling had not, however, for- 
saken him. In the summer after his return he made 
a journey to the country west of the Mississippi, in 
company with Mr. Ellsworth, a commissioner intrust- 
ed with the removal of certain Indian tribes, and 
roamed over wild regions, then the hunting-grounds 
of the savage, but into which the white man has since 
brought his plough and his herds. He did not pub- 
lish his account of this journey until 1835, when it 
appeared as the first volume of the Crayon Miscel- 
lany, under the title of a Totir on the Prairies. In 
this work the original West is described as Irving 
knew how to describe it, and the narrative is in that 
vein of easy gayety peculiar to his writings. Abbots- 
ford and Newstead Abbey formed the second volume 
of the Crayon Miscellany , and to these he afterward 



134 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

added another, entitled Legends of the Co?iquest of 
Spam. 

In 1836, he published Astoria; or, Anecdotes of 
an Enterprise beyond the Rocky Moiintains ; a some- 
what curious example of literary skill. A volum- 
inous commercial correspondence was the dull ore of 
the earth which he refined and wrought into sym- 
metry and splendor. Irving reduced to a regular nar- 
rative the events to which it referred, bringing out 
the picturesque whenever he found it, and enlivening 
the whole with touches of his native humor. His 
nephew, Pierre M. Irving, lightened his labor ma- 
terially by examining and collating the letters and 
making memoranda of their contents. In 1837, he 
prepared for the press the Adventures of Captain 
Bonneville, of the United States Army, in the Rocky 
Mountains and the Far West. He had the manu- 
script journal of Bonneville before him, but the hand 
of Irving is apparent in every sentence. 

About the time that this work appeared, Irving 
was drawn into the only public controversy in which, 
so far as I know, he ever engaged. William Leggett 
then conducted a weekly periodical entitled the 
Plaindealer, remarkable both for its ability and its 
love of disputation. It attacked Mr. Irving for alter- 
ing a line or two in one of my poems, with a view of 



WASHINGTON IRVING. 1 35 

making it less offensive to English readers, and for 
writing a preface to the American edition of his Toitr 
on the Prairies, full of professions of love for his 
country, which were studiously omitted from the Eng- 
lish edition. From these circumstances the Plain- 
dealer drew an inference unfavorable to Irving's 
sincerity. 

I should here mention, and I hope I may do it 
without much egotism, that when a volume of my 
poems was published here in the year 1832, Mr. Ver- 
planck had the kindness to send a copy of it to Ir- 
ving, desiring him to find a publisher for it in England. 
This he readily engaged to do, though wholly unac- 
quainted with me, and offered the volume to Murray, 
" Poetry does not sell at present," said Murray, and 
declined it. A bookseller in Bond street, named 
Andrews, undertook its publication, but required that 
Irving should introduce it with a preface of his own. 
He did so, speaking of my verses in such terms as 
would naturally command for them the attention of 
the public, and allowing his name to be placed in the 
title-page as the editor. The edition, in consequence, 
found a sale. It happened, however, that the pub- 
lisher objected to two lines in a poem called the 
So7ig of Marion's Men. One of them was 
" The British soldier trembles," 



136 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

and Irving good-naturedly consented it should be al- 
tered to 

" The foeman trembles in his camp." 

The other alteration was of a similar character. 

To the accusations of the Plaindealer, Irving re- 
plied with a mingled spirit and dignity which almost 
makes us regret that his faculties were not oftener 
roused into energy by such collisions, or, at least, 
that he did not sometimes employ his pen on contro- 
verted points. He fully vindicated himself in both in- 
stances, showing that he had made the alterations in 
my poem from a simple desire to do me service, and 
that with regard to the Tour on the Prairies, he had 
sent a manuscript copy of it to England for publica- 
tion, at the same time that he sent another to the 
printer here ; and that it would have been an absurd- 
ity to address the English edition to the American 
public. But as this was the first time that he had ap- 
peared before his countrymen as an author since his 
return from Europe, it was but proper that he should 
express to them the feelings awakened by their gen- 
erous welcome. " These feelings," he said, " were 
genuine, and were not expressed with half the warmth 
with which they were entertained ; " an assertion 
which every reader, I believe, was disposed to receive 
literally. 



WASHINGTON IRVING. 1 37 

In his answer to the Plaindealer, some allusions 
were made to me which seemed to imply that I had 
taken part in this attack upon him. To remove the 
impression, I had sent a note to the Plaindealer, for 
publication, in which I declared in substance that I 
never had complained of the alterations of my poem — 
that though they were not such as I should have 
made, I was certain they were made with the kindest 
intentions, and that I had no feeling toward Mr. Ir- 
ving but gratitude for the service he had rendered 
me. The explanation was graciously accepted, and 
in a brief note, printed in the Plaindealer, Irving pro- 
nounced my acquittal. 

Several papers were written by Irving, in 1839 and 
the following year, for the Knickerbocker, a monthly 
periodical conducted by his friend, Lewis Gaylord 
Clark, all of them such as he only could write. They 
were afterward collected into a volume, entitled 
Wolf erf s Roost, from the ancient name of that beauti- 
ful residence of his on the banks of the Hudson, in 
which they were mostly written. They were, perhaps, 
read with more interest in the volume than in the 
magazine, just as some paintings of the highest merit 
are seen with more pleasure in the artist's room than 
on the walls of an exhibition. 

In 1842, he went to Spain as the American min- 



138 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

ister, and remained in that countiy for four years. I 
have never understood that anything occurred during 
that time to put his talents as a negotiator to any rig- 
orous test. He was a sagacious and intelligent ob- 
server ; his connection with the American Legation 
in London had given him diplomatic experience, and 
I have heard that he sent home to his government 
some valuable despatches on the subject of our rela- 
tions with Spain. In other respects, he did, at least, 
what all American ministers at the European courts 
are doing, and I suppose my hearers understand very 
well what that is ; but if there had been any question 
of importa'nce to be settled, I think he might have ac- 
quitted himself as well as many who have had a high- 
er reputation for dexterity in business. When I was 
at Madrid in 1857, a distinguished Spaniard said 
to me : " Why does not your government send out 
Washington Irving to this court .'' Why do you not 
take as your agent the man whom all Spain admires, 
venerates, loves .'' I assure you, it would be difficult 
for our government to refuse anything which Irving 
should ask, and his signature would make almost any 
treaty acceptable to our people." 

Returning in 1846, Irving went back to Sunny- 
side, on the Hudson, and continued to make it his 
abode for the rest of his life. Those who passed up 



WASHINGTON IRVING. 1 39 

and down the river before the year 1835, may remem- 
ber a neglected cottage on a green bank, with a few 
locust-trees before it, close to where a little brook 
brings in its tribute to the mightier stream. In that 
year Irving became its possessor ; he gave it the 
name it now wears, planted its pleasant slopes with 
trees and shrubs, laid it out in walks, built outhouses, 
and converted the cottage into a more spacious dwell- 
ing, in the old Dutch style of architecture, with crow- 
steps on the gables ; a quaint, picturesque building, 
with "as many angles and corners, "to use his own 
words, " as a cocked hat." He caused creeping plants 
and climbing roses to be trained up its walls ; the 
trees he planted prospered in that sheltered situation, 
and were filled with birds, which would not leave 
their nests at the approach of the kind master of the 
place. The house became almost hidden from sight 
by their lofty summits, the perpetual rustlings of 
which, to those who sat within, were blended with the 
murmurs of the water. Van Tassel would have had 
some difficulty in recognizing his old abode in this lit- 
tle paradise, with the beauty of which one of Irving's 
friends* has made the public familiar in prose and 
verse. 

At Sunnyside, Irving wrote his Life of Oliver 

* H. T. Tuckerman. 



I40 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

Goldsmith: Putnam, the bookseller, had said to him 
one day: "Here is Foster's Life of GoldsviitJi ; I 
think of republishing it." " I once wrote a Memoir 
of Goldsmith," answered Irving, " which was prefixed 
to an edition of his works printed at Paris ; and I have 
thought of enlarging it and making it more perfect." 
" If you will do that," was the reply of the bookseller, 
" I shall not republish the Life by Foster." Within 
three months afterward, Irving's Life of GoldsviitJi, 
was finished and in press. It was so much superior 
to the original sketch in the exactness of the particu- 
lars, the entertainment of the anecdotes, and the 
beauty of the style, that it was really a new work. 
For my part, I know of nothing like it. I have read 
no biographical memoir which carries forward the 
reader so delightfully and with so little tediousness of 
recital or reflection. I never take it up without being 
tempted to wish that Irving had written more works 
of the kind ; but this could hardly be ; for where 
could he have found another Goldsmith .-' 

In 1850, appeared his Lives of Mahomet and his 
Sueeessof's, composed principally from memoranda 
made by him during his residence in Spain ; and in 
the same year he completed the revisal of his works 
for a new edition, which was brought out by Putnam, 
a bookseller of whose obliging and honorable conduct 



WASHINGTON IRVING. I4I 

he delighted to speak. Irving was a man with whom 
it was not easy to have a misunderstanding; but, 
even if he had been of a different temper, these com- 
mendations would have been none the less deserved. 

When Cooper died, toward the close of the year 
1850, Irving, who had not long before met him, ap- 
parently in the full vigor of his excellent constitution, 
was much shocked by the event, and took part in the 
meetings held for the purpose of collecting funds to 
erect a monument to his memory in this city — a de- 
sign which, I am sorry to say, has wholly failed. He 
wrote a letter advising that the monument should be 
a statue, and attended the great memorial meeting 
held in Metropolitan Hall, in February of the next 
year, at which Webster presided. He was then near 
the end of his sixty-eighth year, and was remarked 
as one over whom the last twenty years had passed 
lightly. He, whom Dr. Francis describes as in early 
life a slender and delicate youth, preserving his health 
by habitual daily exercise, appeared before that vast 
assembly a fresh, well-preserved gentleman scarcely 
more than elderly, with firm but benevolent features, 
well-knit and muscular limbs, and an elastic step, the 
sign of undiminished physical vigor. 

In his retirement at Sunnyside, Irving planned 
and executed his last great work, the Life of Wash- 



142 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

ingtoii, to which he says he had long looked forward 
as his crowning Hterary effort. Constable, the Edin- 
burgh bookseller, had proposed it to him thirty years 
before, and he then resolved to undertake it as soon 
as he should return to the United States. It was 
postponed in favor of other projects, but never aban- 
doned. At length the expected time seemed to have 
arrived ; his other tasks had been successfully per- 
formed ; the world was waiting for new works from 
his pen; his mind and body were yet in their vigor; 
the habit and the love of literary production yet re- 
mained, and he addressed himself to this greatest of 
his labors. 

Yet he had his misgivings, though they could not 
divert him from his purpose. " They expect too 
much — too much," he said to a friend of mine, to 
whom he was speaking of the magnitude of the task 
and the difficulty of satisfying the public. We can- 
not wonder at these doubts. At the time when he 
began to employ himself steadily on this work, he was 
near the age of threescore and ten, when with most 
men the season of hope and confidence is past. He 
was like one who should begin the great labor of the 
day when the sun was shedding his latest beams, and 
what if the shadows of night should descend upon him 
before his task was ended .-' A vast labor had been 



WASHINGTON IRVING. 143 

thrown upon him by the almost numberless documents 
and papers recently brought to light relating to the 
events in which Washington was concerned — such as 
were amassed and digested by the research of Sparks, 
and accompanied by the commentary of his excellent 
biography. These were all to be carefully examined 
and their spirit extracted. Historians had in the mean 
time arisen in our country, of a world-wide fame, 
with whose works his own must be compared, and he 
was to be judged by a public whom he, more than al- 
most any other man, had taught to be impatient of 
mediocrity. 

I do not believe, however, that Irving's task 
would have been performed so ably if it had been 
undertaken when it was suggested by Constable ; the 
narrative could not have been so complete in its 
facts ; it might not have been written with the same 
becoming simplicity. It was fortunate that the work 
was delayed till it could be written from the largest 
store of materials, till its plan was fully matured in 
all its fair proportions, and till the author's mind had 
become filled with the profoundest veneration for his 
subject. 

The simplicity already mentioned is the first qual- 
ity of this work which impresses the reader. Here 
is a man of genius, a poet by temperament, writing 



144 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

the life of a man of transcendent wisdom and virtue — 
a life passed amidst great events, and marked by in- 
estimable public services. There is a constant temp- 
tation to eulogy, but the temptation is resisted ; the 
actions of his hero are left to speak their own praise. 
He records events- reverently, as one might have re- 
corded them before the art of rhetoric was invented, 
with no exaggeration, with no parade of reflection; 
the lessons of the narrative are made to impress 
themselves on the mind by the earnest and conscien- 
tious relation of facts. Meantime the narrator 
keeps himself in the background, solely occupied with 
the due presentation of his subject. Our eyes are 
upon the actors whom he sets before us — we never 
think of Mr. Irving. 

A closer examination reveals another great merit 
of the work, the admirable proportion in which the 
author keeps the characters and events of his story. 
I suppose he could hardly have been conscious of 
this merit, and that it was attained without a direct 
effort. Long meditation had probably so shaped and 
matured the plan in his mind, and so arranged its 
parts in their just symmetry, that, executing it consci- 
entiously as he did, he could not have made it a 
different thing from what we have it. There is noth- 
ing distorted, nothing placed in too broad a light or 



WASHINGTON IRVING. I45 

thrown too far in the shade. The incidents of our 
Revolutionary War, the great event of Washington's 
Hfe, pass before us as they passed before the eyes of 
the commander-in-chief himself, and from time to 
time varied his designs. Washington is kept always 
in sight, and the office of the biographer is never 
allowed to become merged in that of the historian. 

The men who were the companions of Washing- 
ton in the field or in civil life, are shown only in their 
association with him, yet are their characters drawn, 
not only with skill and spirit, but with a hand that de- 
lighted to do them justice. Nothing, I believe, could 
be more abhorrent to Irving's ideas of the province 
of a biographer, than the slightest detraction from 
the merits of others, that his hero might appear the 
more eminent. So remarkable is his work in this 
respect, that an accomplished member of the Histor- 
ical Society,* who has analyzed the merits of the 
Life of Washington with a critical skill which makes 
me ashamed to speak of the work after him, has de- 
clared that no writer, within the circle of his reading, 
" has so successfully established his claim to the rare 
and difficult virtue of impartiality." 

I confess, my admiration of this work becomes 
the greater the more I examine it. In the other 

* G. W. Greene. " Biographical Studies." 

7 



146 ' ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

writings of Irving are beauties which strike the 
reader at once. In this I recognize quaUties which 
lie deeper, and which I was not sure of finding — a 
rare equity of judgment; a large grasp of the subject; 
a profound philosophy, independent of philosophical 
forms, and even instinctively rejecting them; the pow- 
er of reducing an immense crowd of loose materials to 
clear and orderly arrangement ; and forming them 
into one grand whole, as a skilful commander, from 
a rabble of raw recruits, forms a disciplined army, 
animated and moved by a single will. 

The greater part of this last work of Irving was 
composed while he was in the enjoyment of what 
might be called a happy old age. This period of 
his life was not without its infirmities, but his frame 
was yet unwasted, his intellect bright and active, and 
the hour of decay seemed distant. He had become 
more than ever the object of public veneration^ and in 
his beautiful retreat enjoyed all the advantages with 
few of the molestations of acknowledged greatness ; 
a little too much visited, perhaps, but submitting to 
the intrusion of his admirers with his characteristic 
patience and kindness. That retreat had now be- 
come more charming than ever, and the domestic 
life within was as beautiful as the nature without. A 
surviving brother, older than himself, shared it with 



WASHINGTON IRVING. I47 

him, and several affectionate nephews and nieces 
stood to him in the relation of sons and daughters. 
He was surrounded by neighbors who saw him daily, 
and honored and loved him the more for knowing 
him so v/ell. 

While he was engaged in writing the last pages 
of his Life of Washington, his countrymen heard 
with pain that his health was failing and his strength 
ebbing away. He completed the work, however, 
though he was not able to revise the last sheets, and 
we then heard that his nights had become altogether 
sleepless. He was himself of opinion that his labors 
had been too severe for his time of life, and had 
sometimes feared that the power to continue them 
would desert him before his work could be finished. 
A catarrh, to which he had been subject, had by 
some injudicious prescription, been converted into an 
asthma ; and the asthma, according to the testimony 
of his physician, Dr. Peters, one of the most atten- 
tive and assiduous of his profession, was at length 
accompanied by an enlargement of the heart. This 
disease ended in the usual way by a sudden dis- 
solution. On the 28th of November last, in the 
evening, he had withdrawn to his room, attended 
by one of his nieces carrying his medicines, when 
he complained of a sudden feeling of intense sad- 



148 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

ness, sank immediately into her arms, and died with- 
out a struggle. 

Although he had reached an age beyond which 
life is rarely prolonged, the news of his death was ev- 
erywhere received with profound sorrow. The whole 
country mourned, but the grief was most deeply felt 
in his immediate neighborhood ; the little children 
wept for the loss of their good friend. When the 
day of his funeral arrived, the people gathered from 
far and near to attend it ; this capital poured forth 
its citizens ; the trains on the railway were crowded, 
and a multitude, like a mass meeting, but reverentially 
silent, moved through the streets of the neighboring 
village which had been dressed in the emblems of 
mourning, and clustered about the church and the 
burial ground. It was the first day of December ; 
the pleasant Indian summer of our climate had been 
prolonged far beyond its usual date ; the sun shone 
with his softest splendor, and the elements were 
hushed into a perfect calm ; it was like one of the 
blandest days of October. The hills and forests, the 
meadows and waters which Irving had loved, seemed 
listening, in that quiet atmosphere, as the solemn fu- 
neral service was read. 

It was read over the remains of one whose life 
had well prepared his spirit for its new stage of be- 



WASHINGTON IRVING. I49 

ing. Irving did not aspire to be a theologian, but liis 
heart was deeply penetrated with the better part of 
religion, and he had sought humbly to imitate the 
example of the Great Teacher of our faith. 

That amiable character which makes itself so 
manifest in the writings of Irving was seen in all his 
daily actions. He was ever ready to do kind offices ; 
tender of the feelings of others ; carefully just, but 
ever leaning to the merciful side of justice ; averse 
to strife ; and so modest that the world never ceased 
to wonder how it should have happened that one 
so much praised should have gained so little assur- 
ance. He envied no man's success, he sought to 
detract from no man's merits, but he was acutely 
sensitive both to praise and to blame — sensitive to 
such a degree that an unfavorable criticism of any of 
his works would almost persuade him that they were 
as worthless as the critic represented them. He 
thought so little of himself that he could never com- 
prehend why it was that he should be the object of 
curiosity or reverence. 

From the time that he began the composition of 
his Sketch Book, his whole life was the life of an au- 
thor. His habits of composition were, however, by 
no means regular. When he was in the vein, the pe- 
riods would literally stream from his pen ; at other 



150 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

times he .would scarcely write anything. For two 
years after the failure of his brothers at Liverpool, he 
found it almost impossible to write a line. He was 
throughout life an early riser, and when in the mood, 
would write all the morning and till late in the day, 
wholly engrossed with his subject. In the evening 
he was ready for any cheerful pastime, in which he 
took part with an animation almost amounting to 
high spirits. These intervals of excitement and in- 
tense labor, sometimes lasting for weeks, were suc- 
ceeded by languor, and at times by depression of 
spirits, and for months the pen would lie untouched ; 
even to answer a letter at these times was an irk- 
some task. 

In the evening he wrote but very rarely, knowing 
— so at least, I infer — that no habit makes severer 
demands upon the nervous system than this. It was 
owing, I doubt not, to this prudent husbanding of his 
powers, along with his somewhat abstinent habits 
and the exercise which he took every day, that he 
was able to preserve unimpaired to so late a period 
the faculties employed in original composition. He 
had been a vigorous walker and a fearless rider, and 
in his declining years he drove out daily, not only for 
the sake of the open air and motion, but to refresh 
his mind with the aspect of nature. One of his fa- 



WASHINGTON IRVING. 151 

vorite recreations was listening to music, of which he 
was an indulgent, critic, and he contrived to be 
pleased and soothed by strains less artfully modu- 
lated than fastidious ears are apt to require. 

His facility in writing and the charm of his style 
were owing to very early practice, the reading of 
good authors, and the native elegance of his mind ; 
and not, in my opinion, to any special study of the 
graces of manner or any anxious care in the use of 
terms and phrases. Words and combinations of 
words are sometimes found in his writings to which a 
fastidious taste might object ; but these do not pre- 
vent his style from being one of the most agreeable 
in the whole range of our literature. It is transpa- 
rent as the light, sweetly modulated, unaffected, the 
native expression of a fertile fancy, a benignant tem- 
per, and a mind which, delighting in the noble and 
the beautiful, turned involuntarily away from their 
opposites. His peculiar humor was, in a great 
measure, the offspring of this constitution of his 
mind. This " fanciful playing with coijimon things," 
as Mr. Dana calls it, is never coarse, never tainted 
with grossness, and always in harmony with our bet- 
ter sympathies. It not only tinged his writings, but 
overflowed in his delightful conversation. 

I have thus set before you, my friends, with such 



152 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

measure of ability as I possess, a rapid and imperfect 
sketch of the life, character and genius of Washing- 
ton Irving. Other hands will yet give the world a 
bolder, more vivid and more exact portraiture. In 
the mean time, when I consider for how many years 
he stood before the world as an author, with a still 
increasing fame — half a century in this most change- 
ful of centuries — I cannot hesitate to predict for him 
a deathless renown. Since he began to write, em- 
pires have risen and passed away ; mighty captains 
have appeared on the stage of the world, performed 
their part, and been called to their account ; wars 
have been fought and ended, which have changed the 
destinies of the human race. New arts have been in- 
vented and adopted, and have pushed the old out of 
use ; the household economy of half mankind has un- 
dergone a revolution. Science has learned a new 
dialect and forgotten the old ; the chemist of 1 807 
would be a vain babbler among his brethren of the 
present day, and would in turn become bewildered in 
the attempt to understand them. Nation utters 
speech to nation in words that pass from realm to 
realm with the speed of light. Distant countries 
have been made neighbors ; the Atlantic Ocean has 
become a narrow frith, and the Old World and the 
New shake hands across it ; the East and the West 



WASHINGTON IRVING. 



153 



look in at each other's windows. The new inven- 
tions bring new calamities, and men perish in crowds 
by the recoil of their own devices. War has learned 
more frightful modes of havoc, and armed himself 
with deadlier weapons ; armies are borne to the bat- 
tle-field on the wings of the wind, and dashed against 
each other and destroyed with infinite bloodshed. 
We grow giddy with this perpetual whirl of strange 
events, these rapid and ceaseless mutations ; the 
earth seems to reel under our feet, and we turn to 
those who write like Irving, for some assurance that 
we are still in the same world into which we were 
born ; we read and are quieted and consoled. In 
his pages we see that the language of the heart never 
becomes obsolete ; that Truth and Good and Beauty, 
the offspring of God, are not subject to the changes 
which beset the inventions of men. We become sat- 
isfied that he whose works were the delight of our 
fathers, and are still ours, will be read with the same 
pleasure by those who come after us. 

If it were becoming, at this time and in this as- 
sembly, to address our departed friend as if in his 
immediate presence, I would say: "Farewell! thou 
who hast entered into the rest prepared, from the 
foundation of the world, for serene and gentle spirits 
like thine : Farewell ! happy in thy life, happy in thy 
7* 



154 



ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 



death, happier in the reward to which that death 
was the assured passage ; fortunate in attracting the 
admiration of the world to thy beautiful writings, 
still more fortunate in having written nothing which 
did not tend to promote the reign of magnanimous 
forbearance and generous sympathies among thy fel- 
low-men. The brightness of that enduring fame 
which thou hast won on earth is but a shadowy sym- 
bol of the glory to which thou art admitted in the 
world beyond the grave. Thy errand upon earth was 
an errand of peace and good-will to men, and thou 
art in a region where hatred and strife never enter, 
and where the harmonious activity of those who in- 
habit it acknowledges no impulse less noble or less 
holy than that of love." 



J 



FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. 



FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. 

NOTICES OF HIS LIFE AND WRITINGS, READ BEFORE THE NEW 
YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY, FEBRUARY, 3, 1869. 

I have yielded with some hesitation to the request 
that I should read before the Historical Society a pa- 
per on the Life and Writings of Fitz-Greene Halleck. 
I hesitated, because the subject had been most ably 
treated by others. I consented, because it seemed to 
be expected, by his friends and admirers, that one 
who like myself was so nearly his contemporary, who 
read his poems as they appeared, and through whom 
several of the finest of them were given to the world, 
ought not to let a personal friend, a genial companion 
and an admirable poet pass from us without some 
words setting forth his merits and our sorrow. It is, 
besides, a relief under such a loss to dwell upon the 
characteristic qualities of the departed. It seems in 
an imperfect manner to prolong his existence among 
us ; as we repeat his words we seem to behold the 
friendly brightness of his eye ; we hear the familiar 
tones of his voice. It is as when, in looking upon the 
quivering surface of a river, we see the image of an 



1^8 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

object on the bank which is itself hidden from, our 
eyes. 

The southern shore of Connecticut, bordering on 
the Long Island Sound, is a beautiful region. I have 
never passed along this shore, extending from Byron 
river to the Naugatuck, without admiring it. Here 
the somewhat severe climate of New England is soft- 
ened by the sea air and the shelter of the hills. Such 
charming combinations of rock and valley, of forest 
and stream, of smooth meadows, quiet inlets and 
green promontories are rarely to be found. A multi- 
tude of clear and rapid rivers, the king of which is 
the majestic Connecticut, here wind their way 
to the Sound among picturesque hills, cliffs and 
woods. 

It was at Guilford, in this pleasant region, before 
which the Sound expands into a sea, that Halleck, on 
the 8th of July, 1790, was born. Poets, it is true, and 
poets of great genius, have been born in cities or in 
countries of the tamest aspect ; yet I think it may be 
truly said that the sense of diversified beauty or sol- 
emn grandeur is awakened and nourished in the 
young mind by those qualities in the scenery which 
surround the poet's childhood. I do not find, how- 
ever, in Halleck's verses, any particular recognition 
of the uncommon beauty of the region to which he 



FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. 1 59 

owed his birth. In the well-known lines on Connec- 
ticut, he says : 

" And still her gray rocks tower above the sea, 
That crouches at their feet a conquered wave ; 
'Tis a rough land of earth, and stone, and tree," etc. 

In another passage of the same poem, where he 
celebrates the charms of the region, he speaks solely 
of the tints of the atmosphere and the autumnal glory 
of its forests : 

" in the autumn time 



Earth has no purer and no lovelier clime." 

" Her clear warm heaven at noon, the mist that shrouds 
Her twilight hills, her cool and starry eves. 
The glorious splendor of her sunset clouds. 
The rainbow beauty of her forest leaves," etc. 

Yet that this omission did not arise from any in- 
sensibility to the beauty of- form in landscape is suffi- 
ciently manifested by the enthusiastic apostrophe to 
Weehawken, which escapes from him, as if in spite of 
himself, in his Fanny, amidst the satirical reflections 
which form the staple of the poem. He gave a high- 
er proof of his affection for his birth-place, withdraw- 
ing in the evening of life from the bustling city where 
the greater part of his years had been spent, and 
where he had acquired his fame, to the pleasant 
haunts of his childhood, to dwell where his parents 



l6o ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

dwelt, to die where they died, and to be buried beside 
them. His end was like that of the rivers of his na- 
tive State, which after dashing and sparkling over 
their stony beds, lay themselves down between quiet 
meadows and glide softly to the Sound. 

Halleck had a worthy parentage. His father, 
Israel Halleck, according to Mr. Duyckinck, was a 
man of extensive reading, a tenacious memory, pithy 
conversation and courteous manners. His mother 
was of the Eliot family, a descendant of John Eliot, 
one of the noblest of the New England worthies, the 
translator of the Bible into the Indian language, the 
religious teacher, friend, and protector, of the Indians, 
the rigid non-conformist, the charitable pastor who 
distributed his salary among his needy neighbors, 
who preached and prayed against wigs and tobacco, 
without being able to triumph over the power of fash- 
ion or the force of habit, and of whom it is said that 
his sermons were remarkable for their simplicity of 
expression and freedom from the false taste of the 
age. Halleck inherited his ancestor's spirit of non- 
conformity. He would argue in favor of an establish- 
ed church among people with, whom the dissociation 
of Church and State was an article of political faith, 
and astonished his republican neighbors by declaring 
himself a partisan of monarchy. He was not easily 



FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. l6l 

diverted from any course of conduct by deference to 
public opinion. Mr. Cozzens relates, that when Jacob 
Barker had fallen under the public censure, Halleck, 
then his clerk, was told that he ought to leave his 
service. He answered that he would not desert the 
sinking ship, and that the time to stand by his friends 
was when they were unfortunate. He had a certain 
persistency of temper which was transmitted, I think, 
from the old Puritan stock. It was some fifteen or 
twenty years after he came to live in New York that 
he said to me, " I like to go on with the people whom 
I begin with. I have the same boarding-house now 
that I had when I first came to town ; my clothes are 
made by the same tailor, and I employ the same 
shoemaker." 

I do not find that Halleck began to write verses 
prematurely. Poetry, with most men, is one of the 
sins of their youth, and a great deal of it is written 
before the authors can be justly said to- have reached 
years of discretion. With the greater number it runs 
its course and passes off like the measles or the 
chicken pox : with a few it takes the chronic form and 
lasts a lifetime ; and I have known cases of persons 
attacked by it in old age. A very small number who 
begin, like Milton, Cowley and Pope, to write verses 
when scarce out of childhood, afterwards become 



1 62 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

eminent as poets ; but as a rule, precocity in this de- 
partment of letters is no sign of genius. In the 
verses of Halleck which General Wilson has collect- 
ed, written in 1809 and 18 10 and earlier, I discern but 
slight traces of his peculiar genius, and none of the 
grace and spirit which afterwards became so mark- 
ed. They are better, it is true, than the juvenile 
poems which encumber the later collections of the 
poetry of Thomson, but they are not characteristic. 
Between the time when they were written, and that 
in which he produced the poems which are commonly 
called the Croakers, his poetic faculty ripened rapid- 
ly, and as remarkably as that of Byron between the 
publication of his Hours of Idleness, and that of his 
CJiilde Harold. His fancy had been quickened into 
new life ; he had learned to wield his native lan- 
guage like a .master ; he had discovered that he was a 
wit as well as a poet; and his verse had acquired 
that sweetness and variety of modulation which after- 
wards distinguished it. The poems which bear the 
signature of Croaker and Croaker and Co., written 
by him in conjunction with his friend, Joseph Rod- 
man Drake, began in 1819 to appear in the Evening 
Post, then conducted by Mr, Coleman. That gen- 
tleman observed their merit with surprise, commend- 
ed them in his daily sheet, and was gratified to learn 



FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. 1 63 

that the whole town was talking of them. It was sev- 
eral years after this that Mr. Coleman said to me, " I 
was curious to see the young men whose witty 
verses, published in my journal, made so much noise, 
and desired an interview with them. They came be- 
fore me and I was greatly struck by their appearance. 
Drake looked the poet ; you saw the stamp of genius 
in every feature. Halleck had the aspect of a 
satirist." 

There is a certain manner common to both au- 
thors in these poems. They both wrote with playful- 
ness and gayety, and although with the freedom of 
men who never expected to be known, yet without 
malignity ; but it seems to me that Halleck drove 
home his jests with the sharpest percussion, and 
there are some flashes of that fire which blazed out 
in his Marco Bozzaris. 

The poem entitled Fanny was published about 
that time. It is, in the main, a satire upon those 
who, finding themselves in the possession of wealth 
suddenly acquired, rush into extravagant habits of 
living, give expensive entertainments, and as a nat- 
ural consequence sink suddenly into the obscurity 
from which they rose. But the satire takes a wider 
range. The poet jests at everything that comes in 
his way ; authors, politicians, men of science, each is 



164 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

booked for a pleasantry ; all are made to contribute 
to the expense of the entertainment set before the 
reader. The sting of his witticisms was not unfelt, 
and I think was in some cases resented. People do 
not like to be laughed at, however pleasant it may be 
to those who laugh. At a later period Halleck saw 
the truth of what Pope says of ridicule — 

" The muse may give thee but the gods must guide — " 

and he published an edition of his Fanny, with notes, 
in which he took care to make a generous reparation 
to those whom he had offended. But Fanny is not 
all satire, and here and there in the poem are bursts 
of true lyrical enthusiasm. 

Some comparison has been made between the 
Fanny of Halleck and the satirical poems of Byron. 
But Halleck was never cynical in his satire, and By- 
ron was. I remember reading a remark made by 
Voltaire, on the Dunciad oi Pope. " It wants gayety," 
said the French critic. Gayety is the predominating 
quality of Halleck's satire as hatred is that of the 
satire of Pope and Byron. Byron delighted in think- 
ing how his victim would writhe under the blows he 
gave him. Halleck's satire is the overflow of a 
mirthful temperament. He sees things in a ludi- 
crous light, and laughs without reflecting that the ob- 



FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. 



165 



ject of his ridicule might not like the sport as well as 
himself. 

In 1822 Halleck visited England and the conti- 
nent of Europe. Of what he saw there I do not know 
that there is any record remaining except his noble 
poem entitled Burns, and the spirited and playful 
verses on Alnwick Castle. 

It was in 1825, before Halleck's reputation as a 
poet had reached its full growth, that I took up my 
residence in New York. I first met him at the hos- 
pitable board of Robert Sedgwick, Esq., and remem- 
ber being struck with the brightness of his eye, which 
every now and then glittered with mirth, and with 
the graceful courtesy of his manners. Something 
was said of the length of time that he had lived in 
New York — " You are not from New England .'' " said 
our host. " I certainly am," was Halleck's reply. " I 
am from Connecticut." " Is it possible } " exclaimed 
Mr. Sedgwick. " Well, you are the only New Eng- 
lander that I ever saw in whom the tokens of his ori- 
gin were not as plain as the mark set upon the fore- 
head of Cain." 

I was at that time one of the editors of a monthly 
magazine, the New . York Review, which was soon 
gathered to the limbo of extinct periodicals. Hal- 
leck brought to it his poem of Marco Boszaris, and 



1 56 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

in 1826 the lines entitled Connecticut. The first of 
these poems became immediately a favorite, and was 
read by everybody who cared to read verses. I re- 
member that at an evening party, at the house, I 
think, of Mr. Henry D. Sedgwick, it was recited by 
Mrs. Nichols, the same who not long afterward gave 
the public an English translation of Manzoni's Pro- 
inessi Sposi. She had a voice of great sweetness and 
power, capable of expressing every variety of emo- 
tion. She was in the midst of the poem, her thrill- 
ing voice the only sound in the room, and every ear 
intently listening to her accents, when suddenly she 
faltered ; her memory had lost one of the lines. At 
that instant a clear and distinct voice, supplying the 
forgotten passage, was heard from a group in a cor- 
ner of the room; it was the voice of the poet. With 
this aid she took up the recitation and went on tri- 
umphantly to the close, surrounded by an audience 
almost too deeply interested to applaud. 

The poem entitled Burns, of which let me say I 
am not sure that the verses are not the finest in 
which one poet ever celebrated another, was contrib- 
uted by Halleck, in 1827, to the United States Review, 
which I bore a part in conducting, Halleck had 
been led by his admiration of the poetry of Campbell 
to pay a visit to the charming valley, celebrated by 



FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. i^y 

that poet in his Ga'trude of Wyoming. In memory 
of this he wrote the hnes entitled Wyoming, which 
he handed me for publication in the same magazine. 
Before the United States Review shared the fate of 
its predecessor, there appeared the first printed col- 
lection of Halleck's poetical writings with the title of 
Almvick Castle and other Poems, published by G. 
Carvill Sz:' Company, in i^iy. I had the pleasure .of 
saying to the readers of the Review how greatly I ad- 
mired it 

At that time the Recorder of our city was ap- 
pointed by the governor of the State. Those who 
are not familiar with the judicial system of this State, 
need, perhaps, to be told that the Recorder is not the 
keeper of the city archives, but the judge of an im- 
portant criminal court. In 1828, and for some years 
before and afterward, the office was held by Mr. 
Richard Riker, a man of great practical shrewdness 
and the blandest manners, who was accused by some 
of adjusting his political opinions to the humors of 
the day, and was, therefore, deemed a proper subject 
of satire. One day I met Halleck, who said to me : 
" I have an epistle in verse from an old gentleman to 
the Recorder which, if you please, I will send to you 
for the Evening Post. It is all in my head and you 
shall have it as soon as I have written it out." I 



1 68 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

should mention here that Halleck was in the habit of 
composing verses without the aid of pen and ink, 
keeping them in his memory, and retouching them at 
his leisure. In due time the Epistle to the Recor- 
der, by Thomas Casialy, Esq., came to hand, was 
published in the Evening Post, and was immediately 
read by the whole town. It seems to me one of the 
happiest of Halleck's satirical poems. The man in 
office, who was the subject of it, must have hardly 
known whether to laugh or be angry, and it was im- 
possible, one would think, to be perfectly at ease 
when thus made the plaything of a poet and pelted 
with all manner of gibes, sly allusions and ironical, 
compliments, for the amusement of the public. 
Among its strokes of satire the epistle has passages 
of graceful poetry. Halleck, after the manner of the 
ancients, in leading his victim to the sacrifice, had 
hung its horns with garlands of flowers. The Record- 
er, however, is said to have borne this somewhat dis- 
respectful, but by no means ill-natured assault, with 
the same apparent composure as he endured the 
coarser attacks of the newspapers. 

In 1827 and the two following years, Dr. Bliss, a 
liberal-minded bookseller of this city, published an- 
nually, at the season of the winter holidays, a small 
volume of miscellanies entitled the Talisman. They 



FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. 1 69 

were written almpst exclusively by three authors : 
Mr. Verplanck, eminent in our literature and still 
fortunately spared to perform important public servi- 
ces ; Robert C. Sands, a man of abounding wit, pre- 
maturely lost to the world of letters, and myself as 
the third contributor. For the volume which appear- 
ed in 1828, Halleck offered us one of his most re- 
markable poems. Red Jacket, and I need not say 
how delighted we were to grace our collection by 
anything so vigorous, spirited and original. It was il- 
lustrated by an engraving from a striking full length 
portrait of the old Indian chief, by the elder Wier, 
then in the early maturity of his powers as an artist. 
After the publication of these poems there fol- 
lows an interval of thirty-five years which is almost a 
blank in Halleck's literary history. Between 1828 
and 1863 he seems to have produced nothing worthy 
of note except the additions which he made to his 
poem of Comtecticut, in an edition published by Red- 
field, in 1852, and these are fully worthy of his repu- 
tation. It is almost unaccountable that an author, 
still in the highest strength of his faculties, who had 
written to such acceptance, should not have been 
tempted to write more for a public which he knew 
was eager to read whatever came from his pen. 
" When an author begins to be quoted," said. Hal- 



170 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

leek once to me, " he is already famous." Halleck 
found that he was quoted, but he was not a man to 
go on writing because the world seemed to expect it. 
It was only in 1863, when he was already seventy- 
three years of age, that he wrote for the New York 
Ledger his Voting America, a poem, which, though 
not by any means to be placed among his best, con- 
tains, as Mr. Cozzens, in a paper read before this So- 
ciety, justly remarks, passages which remind us of his 
earlier vigor and grace. 

Yet, if in that interval he did not occupy himself 
with poetic composition, he gave much of his leisure 
to the poetry of others. I have never known any 
one, I think, who seemed to take so deep a delight in 
the. poetry that perfectly suited his taste. He tran- 
scribed it; he read it over and over; he dwelt upon 
it until every word of it became engraven upon his 
memory ; he recited it with glistening eyes and a 
voice and frame tremulous with emotion. Mr. F. S. 
Cozzens has sent me a scrap of paper on which he 
had copied a passage of eight lines of verse, and un- 
der them had written these sentences : " I find these 
verses in an album. Do you know the writer } I 
would give a hundred pounds sterling, payable out of 
any money in my treasury not otherwise appropri- 
ated, to be capable of writing the two last lines. " 



FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. IJl 

I was most agreeably surprised as well as flatter- 
ed, the other day, to receive from General Wilson, 
who has collected the poetical writings of Halleck, 
and is engaged in preparing his Life and Letters for 
the press, a copy, in the poet's handwriting of some 
verses of mine entitled The Planting of the Apple 
Tree, which he had taken the pains to transcribe, 
and which General Wilson had heard him repeat 
from memory in his own fine manner. 

Halleck loved to ramble in the country, for the 
most part, I believe, alone. Once he did me the fa- 
vor to make me his companion. It was while the re- 
gion from Hoboken to Fort Lee was yet but thinly 
sprinkled with habitations, and the cliffs which over- 
look the river on its western bank had lain in forest 
from the time that Hendrick Hudson entered the 
great stream which bears his name. We were on a 
slow-going steamer, which we left at the landing of 
Bull's Ferry, " Do you not go on with us, Mr. Hal- 
leck ? " asked the Captain. " No," was the answer ; 
"I am in a hurry." We walked on to Fort Lee, 
where we made a short stop at the house of a publi- 
can named Reynolds, who is mentioned in Duyck- 
inck's memoir, an English radical, a man of no lit- 
tle mother wit, and a deep strong voice, which he 
greatly loved to hear. Halleck had known him when 



1/2 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

he exercised his vocation in town, and took pleasure, 
I think, in hearing his ready rejoinders to the poet's 
praises of a monarchy and an estabhshed church ; 
and Reynolds, proud of the acquaintance of so emi- 
nent a man as Halleck, received him with demon- 
strations of delight. We returned over the heights 
of Weehawken to look at the magnificent view so 
finely celebrated by Halleck in his Fanny, with its 
glorious bay, its beautiful isles, its grand headlands 
and its busy cities, the murmur of which was heard 
blending with the dash of waves at the foot of the 
cliff. 

I have mentioned that Halleck was early a clerk 
in the office of Mr. Barker. He was afterwards em- 
ployed in the same capacity by John Jacob Astor, the 
richest man of his day in New York, and exceedingly 
sagacious and fortunate in his enterprises. His term 
of employment by Mr. Astor came, however, to an 
end ; and I think that he was then compelled by the 
narrowness of his means to practise a rigid economy. 
He was of too independent a spirit-to allow himself 
to be drawn into a situation which would incline him 
to keep out of the way of a creditor. He was an ex- 
cellent accountant ; I have a letter from one of his 
friends, speaking of his skill in difficult and intricate 
computations, in which Mr. Astor employed him with 



FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. 1 73 

confidence. Perhaps the habit of exactness in this 
vocation led to exactness in his deahngs with all men. 
His example is an encouraging one for poets and 
wits, since it teaches that a lively fancy and practical 
good sense do not necessarily stand in each other's 
way. Somebody has called prudence a rascally vir- 
tue, and I have heard Halleck himself rail at it, and 
refer to Benjamin Franklin as a man who had ac- 
quired a false reputation by his dexterity in taking 
care of his own interests. But Halleck did not dis- 
dain to practise the virtue which he decried, and 
he knew, as well as Franklin himself, that prudence, 
in the proper sense of the term, is wisdom applied to 
the ordinary affairs of life ; that it includes forecast, 
one of the highest operations of the intellect, and the 
due adjustment of means to ends, without which a 
man is useless both to himself and to society, except 
as a blunderer by whose example others may be 
warned. 

I think it was some time after he had given up 
his clerkship that Mr. Astor left him a small legacy, 
to which the son, Mr. William B. Astor, made a liber- 
al addition. Halleck then withdrew from the city in 
which he had passed forty years of his life, to Guilford, 
his native place, in which the Eliots, his ancestors on 
the mother's side, had dwelt for nearly two centu- 



1/4 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

ries. Here, in the household of an unmarried sister, 
older than himself and now living, he passed his later 
years among his books, with some infirmities of body, 
but with intellectual faculties still vigorous, his wit as 
keen and lively as when he wrote his Epistle to 
the Recorder, and his delight in the verses of his 
favorite poets and in the happy expression of 
generous sentiments as deeply felt and as easily 
awakened as when he wrote his noble poem on 
Woman. 

It was not far from the time of which I speak that 
some of Halleck's personal and literary friends gave 
him a dinner at the rooms of the Club called the 
Century. It fell to me to preside, and in toasting 
our guest I first spoke, in such terms as I was able 
to command, of the merits of his poetry, as occupy- 
ing a place in our literature like the poetry of Horace 
in the literature of ancient Rome. I dwelt upon the 
playfulness and grace of his satire and the sweetness 
and fervor of his lyrical vein. Halleck answered 
very happily : 

" I do not rise to speak," he said, " for if I were 
to stand up I could say nothing. I must keep my 
seat and talk to you without ceremony." And then 
he went on, speaking modestly and charmingly of his 
own waitings. I cannot, at this distance of time, re- 



FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. 1 75 

collect how he treated the subject, but I well remem- 
ber that he spoke so well that we could willingly 
have listened to him the whole evening. 

It is now five-and-thirty years, the life of one of 
the generations of mankind, since I contributed to a 
weekly periodical, published in this city, an estimate 
of the poetical genius of Halleck. Of course no- 
body now remembers having read it, and, as it was 
written after his most remarkable poems had been 
given to the public, and as I could say nothing differ- 
ent of them now, I will, with the leave of the au- 
dience, make it a part of this paper. 

" Halleck is one of the most generally admired of 
all our poets, and he possesses what no other does, 
a decided local popularity. He is the favorite poet 
of the city of New York, where his name is cherished 
with a peculiar fondness and enthusiasm. It furnishes 
a standing and ever-ready allusion to all who would 
speak of American literature, and is familiar in the 
mouths of hundreds who would be seriously puzzled 
if asked to name any other American poet. The 
verses of others may be found in the hands of per- 
sons who possess some tincture of polite literature — • 
young men pursuing their studies, or young ladies 
with whom the age of romance is not yet past ; but 
those of Halleck are read by people of the humblest 



1/6 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

degree of literary pretension, and are equally admired 
in Bond street and the Bowery. There are numbers 
who regularly attribute to his pen every anonymous 
poem in the newsjoapers, in which an attempt at hu- 
mor is evident, who 'know him by his style,' and 
whose delight at the supposed wit is heightened al- 
most to transport, by the self-complacency of having 
made the discovery. His reputation, however, is not 
injured by these mistakes, for the verses by which 
they are occasioned are soon forgotten, and his fame 
rests firmly on the compositions which are known to 
be his. 

" This high degree of local popularity has, for one 
of its causes, the peculiar subjects of many of the 
poems of Halleck, relating, as they do, to persons and 
things and events, with which everybody in New 
York is more or less acquainted ; objects which are 
constantly before the eyes, and matters which are the 
talk of every fireside. The poems written by him 
in conjunction with his friend. Doctor Drake, for the 
Evening Post, in the year 1819, under the signature 
of Croaker & Co., and the satirical poem of Fanny, 
are examples of this happy use of the familiar topics 
of the day. He will pardon this allusion to works 
which he has never publicly acknowledged, but which 
are attributed to him by general consent, since, with- 



FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. 1 77 

out them, we might miss some of the peculiar charac- 
teristics of his genius. 

" Halleck's humorous poems are marked by an 
uncommon ease of versification, a natural flow and 
sweetness of language, and a careless, Horatian 
playfulness and felicity of jest, not, however, imitated 
from Horace or any other writer. He finds abun- 
dant matter for mirth in the peculiar state of our soci- 
ety, in the heterogeneous population of the city — 

' Of every race the mingled swarm,' 

in the affectations of newly assumed gentility, the os- 
tentation of wealth, the pretensions of successful 
quackery, and the awkward attempt to blend with 
the habits of trade, an imitation of the manners of 
the most luxurious and fastidious nobility in the 
world — the nobility of England. Sometimes, in the 
midst of a strain of harmonious diction, and soft and 
tender imagery, so soft and tender that you willingly 
yield yourself up to the feeling of pathos, or to the 
sense of beauty it inspires, he surprises you with an 
irresistible stroke of ridicule, 

' As if himself he did disdain, 
And mock the form he did but feign ; ' 

as if he looked with no regard upon the fair poetical 

vision he had raised, and took pleasure in showing 
8* 



178 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

the reader that it was but a cheat. Sometimes, the 
poet, witli that aerial facility which is his peculiar 
endowment, accumulates graceful and agreeable im- 
ages in a strain of irony so fine, that, did not the sub- 
ject compel you to receive it as irony, you would 
take it for a beautiful passage of serious poetry — 
so beautiful, that you are tempted to regret that he 
is not in earnest, and that phrases so exquisitely 
chosen, and poetic coloring so brilliant, should be 
employed to embellish subjects to which they do not 
properly belong. At other times, he produces the 
effect of wit by dexterous allusions to contempora- 
neous events, introduced as illustrations of the main 
subject, with all the unconscious gracefulness of the 
most animated and familiar conversation. He de- 
lights in ludicrous contrasts produced by bringing 
the nobleness of the ideal world into comparison 
with the homeliness of the actual ; the beauty and 
grace of nature with the awkwardness of art. He 
venerates the past and laughs at the present. He 
looks at them through a medium which lends to the 
former the charm of romance, and exaggerates the 
deformity of the latter. 

" Halleck's poetry, whether serious or sprightly, 
is remarkable for the melody of the numbers. It is 
not the melody of monotonous and strictly regular 



FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. 1 79 

measurement. His verse is constructed to please an 
ear naturally fine and accustomed to a wide range of 
metrical modulation. It is as different from that 
painfully balanced versification, that uniform succes- 
sion of iambics, closing the sense with the couplet, 
which some writers practise, and some critics praise, 
as the note of the thrush is unlike that of the cuckoo. 
Halleck is familiar with those general rules and prin- 
ciples which are the basis of metrical harmony ; and 
his own unerring taste has taught him the exceptions 
which a proper attention to variety demands. He 
understands that the rivulet is made musical by ob- 
structions in its channel. You will find in no poet, 
passages which flow with a more sweet and liquid 
smoothness ; but he knows very well that to make 
this smoothness perceived and to prevent it from de- 
generating into monotony, occasional roughnesses 
must be interposed. 

" But it is not only in humorous or playful poetry 
that Halleck excels. He has fire and tenderness and 
manly vigor, and his serious poems are equally admi- 
rable with his satirical. What martial lyric can be 
finer than the verses on the death of Marco Bozzaris ! 
We are made spectators of the slumbers of the Turk- 
ish oppressor, dreaming of 'victory in his guarded 
tent ;' we see the Greek warrior ranging his true- 



l8o ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

hearted band of Suliotes in the forest shades ; we be- 
hold them throwing themselves into the camp ; we 
hear the shout, the groan, the sabre stroke, the death 
shot falling thick and fast, and in the midst of all, the 
voice of Bozzaris bidding them to strike boldly for 
God and their native land. The struggle is long and 
fierce ; the ground is piled with Moslem slain ; the 
Greeks are at length victorious ; and, as the brave 
chief falls bleeding from every vein, he hears the 
proud huzza of his surviving comrades, announcing 
that the field is won, and he closes his eyes in death, 

' Calmly, as to a night's repose.' 

"This picture of the battle is followed by a dirge 
over the slain hero — a glorious outpouring of lyrical 
eloquence, worthy to have been chanted by Pindar 
or Tyrtaeus over one of his ancestors. There is in 
this poem a freedom, a daring, a fervency, a rapidity, 
an affluence of thick-coming fancies, that make it 
seem like an inspired improvisation, as if the thoughts 
had been divinely breathed into the mind of the poet, 
and uttered themselves, voluntarily, in poetic num- 
bers. We think, as we read it, of 

' The large utterance of the early gods.' 

" If an example is wanted of Halleck's capacity 



FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. l8l 

for subjects of a gentler nature, let the reader turn to 
the verses written in the album of an unknown lady, 
entitled Woman. In a few lines, he has gathered 
around the name of woman a crowd of delightful 
associations — all the graces of her sex, delightful pic- 
tures of domestic happiness and domestic virtues, 
gentle affections, pious cares, smiles and tears, that 
bless and heal, 

' And earth's lost paradise restored. 
In the green bower of home.' 

" Red Jacket is a poem of a yet different kind ; a 
poem of manly vigor of sentiment, noble versification, 
strong expression, and great power in the delineation 
of character — the whole dashed off with a great ap- 
pearance of freedom, and delightfully tempered with 
the satirical vein of the author. Some British period- 
ical, lately published, contains a criticism on Ameri- 
can literature, in which it is arrogantly asserted, that 
our poets have made nothing of the Indian character, 
and that Campbell's Outalissi is altogether the best 
portraiture of the mind and manners of an American 
savage, which is to be found in English verse. The 
critic must have spoken without much knowledge of 
his subject. He certainly could never have read 
Halleck's Red Jacket. Campbell's Outalissi is very 
well. He is 'a stoic of the woods,' and nothing 



1 82 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

more ; an Epictetus put into a blanket and leggins, 
and translated to the forests of Pennsylvania ; but he 
is no Indian. Red yacket is the very savage of our 
wilderness. Oiitalissi is a fancy sketch of few linea- 
ments. He is brave, faithful and affectionate, conceal- 
ing these qualities under an exterior of insensibility. 
Red Jacket has the spirit and variety of a portrait 
from nature. He has all the savage virtues and sav- 
age vices, and the rude and strong qualities of mind 
which belong to a warrior, a chief, and an orator of 
the aboriginal stock. He is set before us with sin- 
ewy limbs, gentle voice, motions graceful as a bird's 
in air, an air of command inspiring deference ; brave, 
cunning, cruel, vindictive, eloquent, skilful to dis- 
semble, and terrible, when the moment of dissem- 
bling is past, as the wild beasts or the tempests of his 
own wilderness. 

" A poem which, without being the best he has 
written, unites many of the different qualities of Hal- 
leck's manner, is that entitled Alnwick Castle. The 
rich imagery, the airy melody of verse, the grace of 
language which belong to his serious poems, are to 
be found in the first half of the poem, which relates 
to the beautiful scenery and venerable traditions of, 
the old home of the Percys ; while the author's vein 
of gay humor, fertile in mirthful allusion, appears in 



FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. 1 83 

the conclusion, in which he descends to the homely 
and peaceful occupations of its present proprietors. 

"Whoever undertakes the examination of Hal- 
leck's poetical character, will naturally wish for a 
greater number of examples from which to collect an 
estimate of his powers. He has given us only sam- 
ples of what he can do. His verses are like pas- 
sages of some noble choral melody, heard in the 
brief interval between the opening and shutting of 
the doors of a temple. Why does he not more fre- 
quently employ the powers with which he is so emi- 
nently gifted ? He should know that such faculties 
are invigorated and enlarged, and rendered obedient 
to the will by exercise. He need not be afraid of not 
equalling what he has already written. He will ex- 
cel himself, if he applies his powers, with an earnest 
and resolute purpose, to the work which justice to 
his own fame demands of him. There are heroes of 
our own history who deserve to be embalmed for im- 
mortality, in strains as noble as those which celebrate 
the death of Marco Bozzaris ; and Halleck has shown 
how powerfully he can appeal to our sense of patriot- 
ism, in his Field .of the Grounded Arms, 2i poem 
which has only been prevented from being universal- 
ly popular by the peculiar kind of verse in which it 
is written." 



1 84 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

This is what I wrote of Halleck thirty-five years 
ago. Since that time the causes which gave him a 
local popularity in New York have, in a great meas- 
ure, ceased to exist. A new generation has arisen to 
whom the persons and most of the things which were 
the objects of his playful satire are known but by tra- 
dition. Eminent poets have appeared in our coun- 
try and acquired fame among us, and divided with 
him the attention and admiration of the public. His 
best things, however, are still admired, I think, as 
much as ever in the city which, for the greater part 
of his life, he made his abode. 

Of his literary habits less is known than of those 
of most literary men of his time. During the latter 
years of his life, and, I think, for some time previous, 
he manifested but little inclination to go into society, 
on account, I believe, of a difficulty of hearing which 
made its appearance in middle life and increased 
somewhat as he grew older. He did not like to make 
those with whom he was talking repeat what had been 
said, and often ingeniously contrived to keep up a 
spirited conversation when he was obliged to guess 
the words addressed to him. His leisure, we may 
presume — a good deal of it, at least — was studiously 
passed, since his conversation showed that his reading 
was extensive, and his opinions of authors were al- 



FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. 185 

ways ready, and promptly and decidedly expressed. 
I remember hearing him say that he could think of no 
more fortunate lot in life than the possession of a well 
stored library with ample leisure for reading. He 
was not unskilled in the modern languages of Eu- 
rope, and once he said to me that he had learned Por- 
tuguese in order that he might read the Lusiad in the 
original. That poem, in Mickle's translation, is as lit- 
tle like the work of Camoens as Pope's Iliad is like 
the Iliad of Homer. Mickle has made it declamatory 
where Camoens is simple, and all the rapidity of the 
narrative is lost in the diffuse verses of the translator. 
Halleck was fortunate in a retentive verbal memo- 
ry, and recited fine passages from other poets with 
great spirit and feeling. He could not, as he remark- 
ed, remember what he did not like, and only chose to 
dwell upon such as combined a certain melody of ver- 
sification with beauty of thought. "There is no po- 
etry," he was wont to say, " without music. It must 
have the grace of rhythm and cadence." He was not 
quite satisfied with much of the poetry of the present 
day. " He thought," says Mr. Tuckerman, " that 
much of current verse was the offspring of ingenuity 
rather than inspiration, — that sentiment often lost its 
wholesome fervor in diluted or perverse utterance." 
I too have heard him object to the elaborately beauti- 



1 86 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

fill verse of a popular English poet, that it was not 
manly, and to that of an English poetess of great and 
original genius, that it was not womanly. He delight- 
ed in great or affecting thoughts given with a trans- 
parent clearness of expression, and where he found 
obscurity, vagueness, or harshness, he withheld his 
admiration. 

He was fond of maintaining unexpected opinions, 
which he often did with much ingenuity and art. He 
argued in favor of a monarchy and an Established 
Church. " The ship of state," he used to say, " must 
be governed and navigated like any other ship with- 
out consulting the crew. What would become of the 
stanchest bark in a gale, if the captain were obliged 
to call all hands together and say : ' All you who are 
in favor of taking in sail, will please to say. Aye ?' " 
Before he left New York he began to declare his 
preference of the Roman Catholic Church over other 
denominations of Christians, though his manner of 
stating the argument in its favor might not perfectly 
satisfy its friends. " It is a church," he was wont to 
say, "which saves you a deal of trouble. You leave 
your salvation to the care of a class of men trained 
and set apart for the purpose ; they have the charge 
both of your belief and your practice, and as long as 
you satisfy them on these points you need give your- 



FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. 1 8/ 

self no anxiety about either." It was difficult always 
to be certain how far he was in earnest when he talk- 
ed on these subjects. 

On one occasion his habit of maintaining unusual 
opinions in a manner between jest and earnest, had a 
consequence which his friends regretted. Seth Che- 
ney, the estimable artist who died in 1856, drew por- 
traits of the size of life, in crayon, using no colors, 
with extraordinary skill in transferring to the sheet 
before him the finest and most elevated expression 
of which the countenance of his sitter' was capable. 
He always wrought with a certain creative enthu- 
siasm, like that of the poet. His best portraits, at 
the same time that they are good likenesses, have 
something angelic in their aspect. It is told of Dana 
the poet, that after looking with wonder at one of 
these drawings, the likeness of a lady more eminent 
for goodness than for beauty, he said : " It is our 
friend as she will be at the resurrection." Cheney 
could never bring himself to receive as sitters those 
for whom he did not entertain a decided respect, and 
for that reason declined to take the likeness of cer- 
tain men distinguished in public life. Halleck once 
sat to him, but the artist found the frame of mind 
which he brought to his task disturbed by the free 
and sportive manner in which his sitter spoke of cer- 



1 88 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

tain grave matters, and one morning when Halleck 
came as usual, Cheney said to him : " I have finished 
your likeness." " You have been expeditious," said 
the poet. " Yes," returned Cheney, " I put it in the 
fire this morning." That was the last of Halleck's 
sittings to Cheney; but if the poet had not jested so 
unseasonably we should probably have had one of 
Cheney's finest heads, for Halleck, with his beaming 
countenance, was a capital subject for such an artist. 
Halleck was much besieged, as authors of note, 
particularly poets, are apt to be, with applications 
from persons desirous of appearing in print, to read 
their manuscript verses and give his opinion of their 
merits. I have heard him say that he never turned 
them away with an unfriendly answer. I suppose 
that, regarding poets as a sensitive tribe, keenly alive 
to unfavorable criticism, he spared them as much as 
he could, though I doubt very much whether they 
obtained from him any opinion worth the trouble they 
had taken. If what I write should fall under the eye 
of any persons of either sex, poetically inclined and 
ambitious of renown, I would strongly advise them 
against sending their verses to a poet for his judg- 
ment. In the first place, it does not follow that be- 
cause he passes for a poet, he is therefore a compe- 
tent critic ; in the second place, they may be sure 



FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. l8g 

that he will have little time to look at their verses ; 
and thirdly, he will naturally be so desirous to treat 
their case tenderly that his opinion will be of little 
value. I have always counselled persons of this 
class, if they mitst come before the public, not to 
seek the opinion of individuals, but to get their 
verses printed in the periodicals that will accept 
them, and thus appeal to the reading world at large, 
which is the only proper judge of poetic merit. 

The conversation of Halleck was remarkably 
sprightly and pointed. If there had been any friend 
to take note of what he said, a volume of his pithy 
and pleasant sayings might have been compiled, as 
entertaining as anything of the kind which has ap- 
peared since Boswell's Johnson. His letters were of 
a like character with his familiar talk, and were full 
of playful turns and witty allusions. 

He reached a good old age, dying on the nine- 
teenth of November, 1867, at the age of seventy- 
seven. Towards the latter part of his life he was 
subject to a painful disease, from which he seems to 
have sufiered only in occasional paroxysms, since it 
was but a few days before his death that he wrote to 
his friend Mr. Verplanck, saying that he would like 
to meet his old friends in New York at dinner at 
some old-fashioned place, such as Windust's, and 



IQO ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

that he would like his younger friend, Mr. F. S. Coz- 
zens, to make the arrangements for the purpose. 
His wish, so far as depended on his friends here, was 
about to be fulfilled, when in the midst of their pre- 
parations they were shocked by the news of his 
death. 

He was spared the suffering which is the lot of 
many to whom, in their departure from this life, are 
appointed long days and nights of pain. To him 
might be applied with tolerable truth the lines of 
Milton. 

" So shalt thou live, till like ripe fruit thou drop 
Into thy mother's lap, or be with ease 
Gathered, not harshly plucked, for death mature." 

But the lines which follow soon after these do not 
describe the old age of Halleck : 

" — and for the air of youth 
Hopeful and cheerful, in thy blood will reign 
A melancholy damp of cold and dry 
To weigh thy spirits down," 

since he retained to the last the vivacious faculties 
and quick emotions of his earlier life. His age was 
not unvisited by the warnings which usually accom- 
pany that season of life, but his death was easy, and 
his last hours were solaced by the affectionate cares 
of that sister to whose side he had returned when he 



FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. 19I 

saw the shadows of the hills lengthen across his path 
in the evening sunshine. 

When I look back upon Halleck's literary life, I 
cannot help thinking that if his death had happened 
forty years earlier, his life would have been regarded 
as a bright morning prematurely overcast. Yet Hal- 
leck's literary career may be said to have ended then. 
All that will hand down his name to future years had 
already been produced. Who shall say to what cause 
his subsequent literary inaction was owing ? It was 
not the decline of his powers ; his brilliant con- 
versation showed that it was not. Was it then 
indifference to fame .-• Was it because he put an 
humble estimate on what he had written, and there- 
fore resolved to write no more ? Was it because 
he feared lest what he might write would be un- 
worthy of the reputation he had been so fortunate as 
to acquire ? 

I have my own way of accounting for his literary 
silence in the latter half of his life. One of the re- 
semblances which he bore to Horace consisted in the 
length of time for which he kept his poems by him 
that he might give them the last and happiest touch- 
es. Having composed his poems without committing 
them to paper, and retaining them in his faithful 
memory, he revised them in the same manner, mur- 



192 



ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 



muring them to himself in his soUtary moments, re- 
covering the enthusiasm with which they were first 
conceived, and in this state of mind heightening the 
beauty of the thought or of the expression. T re- 
member that once, in crossing Washington Park, I 
saw Halleck before me, and quickened my pace to 
overtake him. As I drew near, I heard him crooning 
to himself what seemed to be lines of verse, and as 
he threw back his hands in walking, I perceived that 
they quivered with the feeling of the passage he was 
reciting. I instantly checked my pace and fell back, 
out of reverence for the mood of inspiration which 
seemed to be upon him, and fearful lest I should in- 
tercept the birth of a poem destined to be the delight 
of thousands of readers. 

In this way I suppose Halleck to have attained 
the gracefulness of his diction, and the airy melody 
of his numbers. In this way I believe that he 
wrought up his verses to that transparent clearness 
of expression which causes the thought to be seen 
through them without any interposing dimness, so 
that the thought and the phrase seem one, and the 
thought enters the mind like a beam of light. I 
suppose that Halleck's time being taken up by the 
tasks of his vocation, he naturally lost by degrees 
the habit of composing in this manner, and that he 



FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. 1 93 

found it so necessary to the perfection of what he 
wrote, that he adopted no other in its place. 

Whatever was the reason that Halleck ceased so 
early to write, let us congratulate ourselves that he 
wrote at all. Great authors often overlay and almost 
smother their own fame by the voluminousness of 
their writings. So great is their multitude, and so 
rich is the literature of our language, that, for fre- 
quent reading, we are obliged to content ourselves 
with mere selections from the works of the best and 
most beloved of our poets, even those who have not 
written much. It is only a few of their works that 
dwell and live in the general mind. Gray, for exam- 
ple, wrote little, and of that little, only one short poem, 
his Elegy, can be fairly said to survive in the public 
admiration, and that poem I have sometimes heard 
called the most popular in our language. 

In what I have said it will be seen that I have 
principally limited myself to what I personally knew 
of Halleck. I merely designed to add my humble 
tribute to those which sorrowing hands had laid on 
his grave. Our friend is gone, and to those of us 
who knew him the world seems the dimmer for his 
departure. The light of that bright eye is quenched; 
its socket is filled with dust ; that voice is heard no 
more in lively sallies of wit, or repeating in tones full 
9 



194 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

of emotion the verses of the poets whom he loved. 
When such a man, a man of so bright and active an 
intellect, dies, the short period of our existence on 
earth, even when prolonged to old age, presses sadly 
on our minds, and we instinctively seek relief in the 
doctrine of the soul's immortality. We ask ourselves 
how that conscious intelligence, of which the bodily 
organs are manifestly so imperfect a medium, can be 
resolved, along with them, into the grosser elements 
of which they are compounded ; how a mind so cre- 
ative, so keenly alive to the beauty of God's works, 
and so wonderfully dexterous in combining the ma- 
terials which these works supply into forms which 
have in them somewhat of that transcendant beauty, 
can fail to partake of the endless existence of the Di- 
vinity whom it thus imitates. We connect the cre- 
ative in man with the imperishable and undying, and 
reverently trust the spirit to the compassionate cares 
of Him who breathed it into the human frame. 



GULIAN CROMMELIN VERPLANCK. 



GULIAN CROMMELIN VERPLANCK. 

A DISCOURSE ON HIS LIFE, CHARACTER AND WRITINGS, DE- 
LIVERED BEFORE THE NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 

MAY 17, 1870. 

The life of him in honor of whose memory we are 
assembled, was prolonged to so late a period, and to 
the last was so full of usefulness, that it almost 
■seemed a permanent part of the organization and the 
active movement of society here. His departure has 
left a sad vacuity in the framework which he helped 
to uphold and adorn. It is as if one of the columns 
which support a massive building had been suddenly 
taken away ; the sight of the space which it once oc- 
cupied troubles us, and the mind wearies itself in the 
unavailing wish to restore it to its place. 

In what I am about to say, I shall put together 
some notices of the character, the writings, and the 
services of this eminent man, but the portraiture 
which I shall draw will be but a miniature. To do it 
full justice a larger canvas would be required than 
the one I propose to take. He acted in so many 
important capacities ; he was connected in so many 
ways with our literature, our legislation, our jurispru- 



198 ORATIONS A.ND ADDRESSES. 

dence, our public education, and public charities, 
that it would require a volume adequately to set 
forth the obligations we owe to the exertion of his 
fine faculties for the general good. 

Gulian Crommelin Verplanck was born in Wall 
street, in the city of New York, on the 6th of Au- 
gust, 1786. The house in which he was born was a 
large yellow mansion, standing on the spot on which 
the Assay Office has since been built. A little be- 
yond this street, so that it was but a step into the 
country, lay the island of New York in all its original 
beauty. His father, Daniel Crommelin Verplanck, 
was a respectable citizen of the old stock of colonists 
from Holland, who for several terms was a member 
of Congress, and whom I remember as a short, stout 
old gentleman, commonly called Judge Verplanck, 
from having been a judge of the County Court of 
Duchess. In that county he resided during the 
latter years of his life on the patrimonial estate, 
where the son, ever since I knew him, was in the 
habit of passing a part of the summer. It had 
been in the family of the Verplancks ever since 
their ancestor, Gulian Verplanck with Francis 
Rombout, in 1683, purchased it, with other lands, 
of the Wappinger Indians for a certain amount of 
money and merchandise, specified in a deed signed 



GULIAN CROMMELIN VERPLANCK. I99 

by the Sachem Sakoraghuck and other chiefs, the 
spelUng of whose names seems to defy pronunciation. 
The two purchasers afterwards divided this domain, 
and to the Verplancks was assigned a tract which 
they have ever since held. 

This fine old estate has a long western border on 
the Hudson,- and extends easterly for four or five 
miles to the village of Fishkill. About half a mile 
from the great river stands the family mansion, 
among its ancient groves — a large stone building of 
one story when I saw it, with a sharp roof and 
dormer windows, beside its old-fashioned and well- 
stocked garden. A winding path leads down to the 
river's edge, through an ancient forest which has 
stood there ever since Hendrick Hudson navigated 
the river bearing his name, and centuries before. 
This mansion was the country retreat of Mr. Ver- 
planck from the time that I first knew him ; and here 
it was that his grandfather on the paternal side, Sam- 
uel Verplanck, passed much of his time during our 
Revolutionary War, in which, although he took no 
share in political measures, his inclinations were on 
the side of the mother country. 

This Samuel Verplanck, by a custom which 
seems not to have become obsolete in his time, was 
betrothed, wiien but seven years old, to his cousin 



200 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

Judith Crommelin, the daughter of a wealthy banker 
of the Huguenot stock in Amsterdam. When the 
young gentleman was of the proper age he was sent 
to make the tour of Europe, and bring home his 
bride. He was married in the banker's great stone 
house, which stood beside a fair Dutch garden, with 
a wide marble entrance-hall, the counting-room on one 
side of it, and the drawing-room bright with gilding 
on the other. When the grandson, in after years, 
visited Amsterdam, the mansion which had often 
been described to him by his grandmother, had to 
him quite a familiar aspect. 

The lady from Amsterdam was particularly ac- 
complished, and versed not only in several modern 
languages, but in Greek and Latin, speaking fluent- 
ly the Latin of which the Colloquies of her great 
countryman, Erasmus, furnished so rich a store of 
phrases for ordinary dialogue. Her conversation is 
said to have been uncommonly brilliant and her so- 
ciety much sought. During the Revolutionary War 
her house was open to the British officers. General 
Howe, and others, accomplished men, of whom she 
had many anecdotes to relate to her grandson, when 
he came under her care. For the greater part of 
this time her husband remained at the country seat 
in Fishkill, quietly occupied with his books and the 



GULIAN CROMMELIN VERPLANCK. 20I 

care of his estate. Meantime, she wrote anxious let- 
ters to her father, in Amsterdam, which were an- 
swered in neat French. The banker consoled his 
daughter by saying that " Mr. Samuel Verplanck 
was a man so universally known and honored, both 
for his integrity and scholarly attainments, that in 
the end all would be well." This proved true ; the 
extensive estate at Fishkill was never confiscated, 
and its owner was left unmolested. 

On the mother's side, our friend had an ancestry 
of quite different political views. His grandfather, 
William Samuel Johnson, of Stratford, in Connecti- 
cut, was one of the revolutionary fathers. Before the 
revolution, he was the agent of Connecticut in Eng- 
land ; when it broke out he took a zealous part in the 
cause of the revolted colonies ; he was a delegate to 
Congress from his State when Congress sat in New 
York, and he aided in framing the Constitution of the 
United States. Afterwards, he was President of Co- 
lumbia College from the year 1787 to the year 1800, 
when, resigning the post, he returned to Stratford, 
where he died in 18 19, at the age of ninety-two. His 
father, the great-grandfather of the subject of this 
memoir, was Dr. Samuel Johnson, of Stratford, one 
of the finest American scholars of his day, and the first 
President of Columbia College, which, however, he 
9* 



202 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

left after nine years, to return and pass a serene old 
age at Stratford. He had been a Congregational 
minister in Connecticut, but by reading tlie works of 
Barrow and other eminent divines of the Anglican 
Church, he became a convert to that church, went to 
England, and taking orders, returned to introduce its 
ritual into Connecticut. He was the friend of Bishop 
Berkeley, whose arm-chair was preserved as an heir- 
loom in his family. When in England, he saw Pope, 
who gave him cuttings from his Twickenham willow. 
These he brought from the banks of the Thames, and 
planted on the wilder borders of his own beautiful 
river, the Housatonic, which at Stratford enters the 
Sound. They were, probably, the progenitors of all 
the weeping willows which are seen in this part of 
the country, where they rapidly grow to a size which 
I have never seen them attain in any other part of 
the world. 

The younger of these Dr. Johnsons — for they 
both received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from 
the University of Oxford — had a daughter Elizabeth, 
who married Daniel Crommelin Verplanck, the son 
of Samuel Verplanck, and the only fruit of their 
marriage was the subject of this memoir. The fair- 
haired young mother was a frequent visitor with her 
child to Stratford, where, under the willow trees from 



GULIAN CROMMELIN VERPLANCK. 203 

Twickenham, as appears from some of her letters, he 
learned to walk. She died when he was but three 
years old, leaving the boy to the care of his grand- 
mother, by whom he was indulgently yet carefully 
reared. 

The grandmother is spoken of as a lively little 
lady, often seen walking up Wall street, dressed in 
pink satin and in dainty high-heeled shoes, with a 
quaint jewelled watch swinging from her waist. Wall 
street was then the fashionable quarter ; the city, still 
in its embryo state, extending but a little way above 
it; it was full of dwelling houses, with here and there 
a church, which has long since disappeared. Over 
that region of the metropolis where mammon is wor- 
shipped in six days out of seven, there now broods 
on Sunday a sepulchral silence ; but then the walks 
were thronged with churchgoers. The boy was his 
grandmother's constant companion. He was trained 
by her to love books and study, to which, however, he 
seems to have had a natural and inherited inclination. 
It is said that at a very tender age she taught him to 
declaim, standing on a table, passages from Latin au- 
thors, and rewarded him with hot pound-cake. An- 
other story is, that she used to put sugar-plums near 
his bedside, to be at hand in case he should take a 
fancy to them in the night. But, as he vyas not spoil- 



204 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

ed by indulgence, it is but fair to conclude that her 
method of educating him was tempered by firmness 
on proper occasions — a quality somewhat rare in 
grandmothers. A letter from one of her descendants 
playfully says : 

" It is a picture to think of her, seated at a mar- 
vellous Dutch bureau, now in possession of her 
great-granddaughters, which is filled with a complex- 
ity of small and mysterious drawers, talking to 
the child, while her servant built the powdered towei 
on her head, or hung the diamond rings in her ears. 
Very likely, at such times, the child was thrusting 
his little fingers into the rouge pot, or making havoc 
with the powder ; and perhaps she knew no better 
way to bring him to order than to tell him of many 
a fright of her own in the war; or she may have 
gone further back in history, and told the boy how 
she and his Huguenot ancestors fled from France 
when the bad King Louis forbade every form of wor- 
ship but his own." 

Dr. Johnson, the grandfather of young Verplanck, 
on the mother's side, came from Stratford to be Pres- 
ident of Columbia College, the year after his grand- 
son was born. To him, in an equal degree with his 
grandmother, we must give the credit of bringing for- 
ward the precocious boy in his early studies. I have 



GULIAN CROMMELIN VERPLANCK. 205 

"diligently inquired what school he attended and who 
were his teachers, but can hear of no others. His 
father had married again, and to the lively Huguenot 
lady was left the almost entire charge of the boy. 
He was a born scholar ; he took to books as other 
boys take to marbles ; and the lessons which he re- 
ceived in the household sufficed to prepare him for 
entering college when yet a mere child, at eleven 
years of age. He took his first degree four years 
afterwards, in 1801, one year after his maternal 
grandfather had returned to Stratford. To that place 
he very frequently resorted in his youth, and there, 
in the well-stored and well-arranged library, he pur- 
sued the studies he loved. The tradition is that he 
conned his Greek lessons lying flat on the floor with 
his thumb in his mouth, and the fingers of the other 
hand employed in twisting a lock of the brown hair 
on his forehead. He took no pleasure in fishing or 
in hunting ; I doubt whether he ever let off a fowl- 
ing-piece or drew a trout from the brook in his life. 
He was fond of younger children, and would recreate 
himself in play with his little relatives, but was no 
visitor to other families. His contemporaries, Wash- 
ington Irving, James K. Paulding, and Governeur 
Kemble, had their amusements and frolics, in which 
he took no part. According to Mr. Kemble, the 



206 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

elder men of the time held up to the youths the ex- 
ample of young Verplanck, so studious and accom- 
plished, and so ready with every kind of knowledge, 
and withal of such faultless habits, as a model for 
their imitation. 

I have said that his relatives on the mother's side 
were of a different political school from his high tory 
grandmother. From them he would hear of the in- 
alienable rights of the people, and the duty, under 
certain circumstances, of revolution ; from her he 
would hear of the obligation of loyalty and obedi- 
ence. The Johnsons would speak of the patriotism, 
the wisdom, and the services of Franklin ; the grand- 
mother of the virtues and accomplishments of Corn- 
wallis. The boy, of course, had to choose between 
these different sides, and he chose the side of his 
country and of the people. 

I think that I perceive in these circumstances 
how it was that the mind of Verplanck was educated 
to that independence of judgment, and that self-reli- 
ance, which in after life so eminently distinguished 
it. He never adopted an opinion for the reason that 
it had been adopted by another. On some points — 
on more, I think, than is usual with most men — he 



GULIAN CROMMELIN VERPLANCK. 207 

was content not to decide, but when he formed an 
opinion it was his own. He had no hesitation in dif- 
fering from others if he saw reason ; indeed, he some- 
times showed that he rather Uked to differ, or chose 
at least, by questioning their opinions, to intimate 
that they were prematurely formed. Another result 
of the peculiar political education which I have de- 
scribed, was the fairness with which he judged of the 
characters and motives of men who were not of his 
party. I saw much, very much of him while he was a 
member of Congress, when political animosities were 
at their fiercest, and I must say that I never knew a 
party man who had less party rancor, or who was 
more ready to acknowledge in his political opponents 
the good qualities which they really possessed. 

After taking his degree he read law in the office 
of Josiah Ogden Hoffman, an eminent member of the 
New York bar, much esteemed in social life, whose 
house was the resort of the best company in New 
York. His first public address, a Fourth of July ora- 
tion, was delivered when he was eighteen years of 
age. It was printed, but no copy of it is now to be 
found. In due season he was admitted to the bar, 
and opened an office for the practice of law in New 
York. A letter from Dr. Moore, formerly President 



20S ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

of Columbia College, relates that Verplanck and him- 
self took an office together on the east side of Pearl 
street, opposite to Hanover Square. " Little busi- 
ness as I had then," proceeds the Doctor, " he seem- 
ed to have still less. Indeed, I am not aware that 
he had, or cared to have, any legal business whatever. 
He spent much of his time out of the office and was 
not very studious when within ; but it was evident 
that he read or had read elsewhere to good purpose ; 
for though I read more Greek than law, and thought 
myself studious, I had occasion to discover more than 
once that he was a better Grecian than I, and could 
enlighten my ignorance." From other sources I 
learn that in his legal studies he delighted in the re- 
ports of law cases in Norman French, that he was 
fond of old French literature, and read Rabelais in 
the perplexing French of the original. It is mention- 
ed in some accounts of his life that he was elected in 
1811 to the New York House of Assembly by a 
party called the Malcontents, but I have not had the 
means of verifying this account, nor am I able to dis- 
cover what were the objects for which the party call- 
ed malcontents was formed. In this year an inci- 
dent occurred of more importance to him than his 
election to the Assembly. 

On the 8th of August, 181 1, the Annual Com- 



GULIAN CROMMELIN VERPLANCK. 209 

mencement of Columbia College was held in Trinity 
Church. Among those who were to receive the de- 
gree of Bachelor of Arts was a young man named 
Stevenson, who had composed an oration to be de- 
livered on the platform. It contained some passages 
of a political nature, insisting on the duty of a repre- 
sentative to obey the will of his constituents. Politi- 
cal parties were at that time much exasperated 
against each other, and Dr. Wilson of the College, to 
whom the oration was submitted, acting, it was 
thought, at the suggestion of Dr. John Mason, the 
eloquent divine, who was then Provost of the College, 
struck out the passages in question and directed that 
they should be omitted in the delivery. Stevenson 
spoke them notwithstanding, and was then privately 
informed by one of the professors that his degree 
would be denied him. Yet when the diplomas were 
delivered, he mounted the platform with the other 
graduates and demanded the degree of Dr. Mason. 
It was refused because of his disobedience. Mr. 
Hugh Maxwell, afterwards eminent as an advocate, 
sprang upon the platform and appealed to the au- 
dience against this denial of what he claimed to be 
the right of Stevenson. Great confusion followed, 
shouts, applauses and hisses, in the midst of which 
Verplanck appeared on the platform, saying : " The 



2IO ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

reasons are not satisfactory ; Mr. Maxwell must be 
supported," and then he moved " that the thanks of 
the audience be given to Mr. Maxwell for his spirit- 
ed defence of an injured man." It was some time be- 
fore the tumult could be allayed, the audience taking 
part with the disturbers ; but the result was that 
Maxwell, Verplanck, and several others were prose- 
cuted for riot in the Mayor's Court. De Witt Clin- 
ton was "then Mayor of New York. In his charge 
to the jury he inveighed with great severity against 
the accused, particularly Verplanck, of whose con- 
duct he spoke as a piece of matchless impudence, and 
declared the disturbance to be one of the grossest 
and most shameless outrages he had ever known. 
They were found guilty ; Maxwell, Verplanck, and 
Stevenson were fined two hundred dollars each, and 
several others less. An appeal was entered by the 
accused but afterwards withdrawn. I have heard 
one of our judges express a doubt whether this dis- 
turbance could properly be considered as a riot, but 
they did not choose to avail themselves of the doubt 
if there was any, and submitted. 

There is this extenuation of the rashness of these 
young men, that Mr. Mason, to whom was attribu- 
ted the attempt to suppress certain passages in Ste- 
venson's oration, was himself in the habit of giving 



GULIAN CROMMELIN VERPLANCK. 211 

free expression to his political sentiments in the pul- 
pit. He belonged to the Federal party, Stevenson to 
the party then called Republican. 

I have said the accused submitted ; but the 
phrase is scarcely accurate. Verplanck took his own 
way of obtaining redress, and annoyed Clinton with 
satirical attacks for several years afterwards. Some 
of these appeared in a newspaper called the Cor- 
rector ; but those which attracted the most atten- 
tion, were the pamphlets styled Letters of Abime- 
lech Coody, Ladies' Shoemaker, the first of which was 
published in 1811, addressed to Dr. Samuel Latham 
Mitchell. 

The war went on until Clinton or some friend was 
provoked to answer in a pamphlet entitled A71 Ac- 
count of Abimelech Coody and other celebrated Wor- 
thies of New York, in a Letter from a Traveller. The 
writer satirizes not only Verplanck, but James K. 
Paulding and Washington Irving, of whose History of 
New York he speaks disparagingly. In what he says 
of Verplanck he allows himself to refer to his figure 
and features as subjects of ridicule. This war I think 
was closed by the publication of The Bticktail Bards, 
as the little volume is called, which contains The 
State Triumvirate, a Political Tale, and the Epistles 
of Brevet Major Pindar Puff. These I have heard 



212 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

spoken of as the joint productions of Verplanck and 
Rudolph Banner, a scholar and a man of wit. The 
State Triumvirate is in octosyllabic verse, and in the 
manner of Swift, but the allusions are obscure, 
and it is a task to read it. The notes, in which the 
hand of Verplanck is very apparent, are intelligible 
enough, and are clever, caustic and learned. The 
Epistles, which are in heroic verse, have striking 
passages, and the notes are of a like incisive charac- 
ter. De Witt Clinton, then Governor of the State, 
valued himself on his devotion to science and liter- 
ature, but he was sometimes obliged, in his messages 
and public discourses, to refer to compends which 
are in everybody's hands, and his antagonists made 
this the subject of unsparing ridicule. 

In the family of Josiah Ogden Hoffman, lived 
Mary Eliza Fenno, the sister of his wife, and daugh- 
ter of John Ward Fenno-, originally of Boston, and 
afterwards proprietor of a newspaper published in 
Philadelphia, entitled the Gazette of the United 
States. Between this young lady and Verplanck 
there grew up an attachment, and in 1 8 1 1 they were 
married. I have seen an exquisite miniature of her 
by Malbone, taken in Her early girlhood when about 
fifteen years old — beautiful as an angel, with light 
chestnut hair and a soft blue eye, in the look of which 



GULIAN CROMMELIN VERPLANCK. 21 3 

is a touch of sadness, as if caused by some dim pre- 
sentiment of her early death. I remember hearing 
Miss Sedgwick say that she should always think the 
better of Verplanck for having been the husband of 
Eliza Fenno. Several of her letters, written to him 
before their marriage, are preserved, which, amidst 
the sprightliness natural to her age, show a more 
than usual thoughtfulness. She rallies him on be- 
ing adopted by the mob, and making harangues at 
ward meetings. She playfully chides him for wan- 
dering from the apostolic church to hear popular 
preachers and clerks that sing well ; which she re- 
gards as crimes against the memory of his ances- 
tors — an allusion to that part of the family pedigree 
which traced his descent in some way from the royal 
line of the Stuarts. She rallies him on his passion 
for old books, remarking that some interesting works 
had just appeared which must be kept from him till 
he reaches the age of threescore, when they will be 
fit for his perusal. She writes to him from Boston, 
that he is accounted there an amazingly plain-spoken 
man — he had called the Boston people heretics. She 
writes to him in Stratford, imagining him in Bishop 
Berkeley's arm-chair, surrounded by family pictures 
and huge folios. These Jetters were carefully pre- 
served by her husband till his death, along with vari- 



214 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

oiis memorials of her whom he had lost ; locks of her 
sunny brown hair, the diamond ring which he had 
placed on her finger when they were engaged to each 
other, wrapped in tresses of the same bright hair, and 
miniatures of her, which the family never heard of till 
he died ; all variously disposed among the papers in 
the drawers of his desk ; so that whenever he opened 
it, he might be reminded of her, and her memory 
might become a part of his daily life. With these 
were preserved some letters of his own, written to 
her about the same time, and of a sportive character. 
In one of these he laments the passing away of the 
good old customs, and simple ways of living in the 
country, supplanted by the usages of town life. 
Everybody was then reading Ccelebs in Search of a 
Wife, and Verplanck, who had just been looking over 
some of the writings of Wilberforce, sees in it resem- 
blances to his style, which led him to set down Wil- 
berforce as the author. 

He lived with his young wife five years, and she 
bore him two sons, one of whom died at the age of 
thirty, unmarried, and the other has become the fa- 
ther of a numerous family. Her health failing he 
took her to Europe, in the hope that it might be re- 
stored by a change of air and scene, but after lan- 
guishing a while she died at Paris, in the year 1817. 



GULIAN CROMMELIN VERPLANCK. 21 5 

She sleeps in the cemetery of Pere La Chaise, among 
monuments inscribed with words strange to her 
childliood, while he, after surviving her for sixty- 
three years, yet never forgetting her, is laid in the 
ancestral burying ground at Fishkill, and the Atlan- 
tic Ocean rolls between their graves. 

He remained in Europe a little while after this 
event, and having looked at what the continent had to 
show him, went over to England. In his letters to 
his friends at home he spoke pathetically of the loss 
of her who was the blessing of his life, of the delight 
with which, had she lived, she would have looked at 
so many things in the Old World now attracting his 
attention ; and of the misfortune of his children to 
be deprived of her care and guidance. In one of his 
letters he speaks enthusiastically of the painter, All- 
ston, with whose genius he was deeply impressed as 
he looked on the grand picture of Daniel interpreting 
the Dream of Belshazzar, then begun but never to 
be finished. In the same letter he relates this anec- 
dote : 

" You may expect another explosion of mad poe- 
try from Lord Byron. Lord Holland, who returned 
from Geneva, a few days ago, told Mr. Gallatin that 
he was the bearer of a considerable cargo of verses 
from his lordship to Murray the publisher, the sub- 



2l6 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

ject not known. That you may have a higher relish 
for the new poem, I give you a Uttle anecdote which 
is told in London. Some time ago Lord Byron's 
books were sold at auction, where a gentleman pur- 
chased a splendid edition of Shakspeare. When it 
was sent home a volume was missing. After several 
fruitless inquiries of the auctioneer the purchaser 
went to Byron. ' What play was in the volume .'* ' 
asked he. ' I think Othello.' ' Ah ! I remember. I 
was reading that when Lady Byron did something to 
vex me. I threw the book at her head and she car- 
ried it out of the room. Inquire of some of her peo- 
ple and you will get your book." 

While abroad, Verplanck fell in with Dr. Mason, 
who had refused Stevenson his degree. The two 
travellers took kindly to each other, and the unpleas- 
ant affair of the college disturbance was forgotten. 

In 1818, after his return from Europe, he deliver- 
ed before this Society the noble Anniversary Dis- 
course in which he commemorates the virtues and la- 
bors of some of those illustrious men who, to use his 
words, "have most largely contributed to raise or 
support our national institutions, and to form or 
elevate our national character." Las Casas, Roger 
Williams, William Penn, General Oglethorpe, Pro- 
fessor Luzac, and Berkeley are among the worthies 



GULIAN CROMMELIN VERPLANCK. 21/ 

whom he celebrates. It has always seemed to me 
that this is one of the happiest examples in our lan- 
guage of the class of compositions to which it be- 
longs, both as regards the general scope and the ex- 
ecution, and it is read with as much interest now as 
when it was first written, 

Mr. Verplanck was elected in 1820 a member of 
the New York House of Assembly, but I do not 
learn that he particularly distinguished himself while 
in that body. In the year following he was appointed, 
in the General Theological Seminary of the Episco- 
pal Church, Professor of the Evidences of Revealed 
Religion and Moral Science in its relations to Theol- 
ogy. For four years he performed the duties of this 
Professorship, with what ability is shown by his Treat- 
ise on the Evidences of Christianity, the fruit of his 
studies during this interval. It is principally a clear 
and impressive view of that class of proofs of the 
Christian religion which have a direct relation to the 
intellectual and moral wants of mankind. For he 
was a devout believer in the Christian gospel, and 
cherished religious convictions for the sake of their 
influence on the character and the life. This work 
was published in 1824, about the time that he re- 
signed his Professorship. 

It was in 1824, that, on a visit to New York, I first 



2l8 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

became acquainted with Verplanck. On the appear- 
ance of a small volume of poems of mine, containing 
one or two which have been the most favorably re- 
ceived, he wrote, in 1822, some account of them for 
the Neiv York American, a daily paper which not 
long before had been established by his cousin, John- 
son Verplanck, in conjunction with the late Dr. 
Charles King. He spoke of them at considerable 
length and in the kindest manner. As I was then 
an unknown literary adventurer, I could not but be 
grateful to the hand that was so cordially held out to 
welcome me, and when I came to live in New York, 
in 1825, an intimacy began in which I suspect the ad- 
vantage was all on my side. 

It was in 1825 that he published his Essay on the 
Doctrijie of Contracts, in which he maintained that 
the transaction between the buyer and seller of a 
commodity should be one of perfect frankness and an 
entire absence of concealment ; that the seller should 
be held to disclose everything within his knowledge 
which would affect the price of what he offered for 
sale, and that the maxim which is compressed into the 
two Latin words, caveat emptor — the maxim that the 
buyer takes the risk of a bad bargain — is not only a 
selfish but a knavish and immoral rule of conduct, 
and should not be recognized by the tribunals. The 



GULIAN CROMMELIN VERPLANCK. 219 

question is ably argued on the grounds of an elevated 
morality — but I have heard jurists object to the doc- 
trine of this essay, that if it were to prevail it would 
greatly multiply the number of lawsuits. 

In 1825, Mr. Verplanck was elected one of the 
three Representatives in Congress, to which this city 
was then entitled. He immediately distinguished him- 
self as a working member. This appellation is given 
in Congress to members who labor faithfully in Com- 
mittees, consider petitions and report upon them, in- 
vestigate claims, inquire into matters referred to their 
judgment, frame bills and present them through their 
Chairman. Besides these, there are the talking mem- 
bers who take part in every debate, often without 
knowing anything of the question, save what they 
learn while the debate is proceeding, and the idle 
members, who do nothing but vote — generally, I 
believe, without knowing anything of the question 
whatever ; but to neither of these classes did Ver- 
planck belong. He was a diligent, useful, and valued 
member of the Committee of Ways and Means, and 
at an important period of our political history was 
its Chairman. 

Then arose the great controversy concerning 
the right of a State to refuse obedience at pleasure to 
any law of Congress, a right contended for under the 



220 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

name of nullification by some of the most eminent 
men of the South, whose ability, political influence, 
and power of putting a plausible face on their heresy, 
gave their cause at first an appearance of great 
strength, and seemed to threaten the very existence 
of the Union. 

With their denial of the binding force of any law 
of Congress which a State might think proper to set 
aside, these men combined another argument. They 
denied the power of Congress under the Constitu- 
tion, to levy duties on imported merchandise for the 
purpose of favoring the home manufacturer, and 
maintained that it could only lay duties for the sake 
of raising a revenue. Mr. Verplanck favored neither 
this view nor their theory of nullification. He held 
that the power to lay duties being given to Congress, 
without reservation by the Constitution, the end or 
motive of laying them was left to the discretion of 
the Legislature. He showed also that the power to 
regulate commerce given to that body in the Consti- 
tution, was, from an early period in our history, held 
to imply a right by laying duties, to favor particular 
traffics, products or fabrics. 

This view of the subject was presented with great 
skill and force in a pamphlet entitled A Letter to 
Colonel William Drayton, of South Carolina, published 



GULIAN CROMMELIN VERPLANCK. 221 

in 183 1. Mr. Verplanck was through life a friend to 
the freedom of exchange, but he would not use in 
its favor any argument which did not seem to him 
just. His pamphlet was so ably reasoned that Wil- 
liam Leggett said to him, in my presence, " Mr. Ver- 
planck, you have convinced me ; I was till now, of a 
different opinion from yours, but you have settled the 
question against me. I now see that whatever may be 
the injustice of protective duties. Congress has the 
constitutional right to impose them." 

In was while this controversy was going on that 
President Jackson issued his proclamation warning 
those who resisted the revenue laws that their resist- 
ance was regarded as rebellion, and would be quelled 
at the bayonet's point. Mr. Calhoun and his friends 
were not prepared for this : indeed, I do not think 
that in any of his plans for the separate action of the 
slave States, he contemplated a resort to arms on 
either side. They looked about them to find some 
plausible pretext for submission, and this the country 
was not unwilling to give. It was generally admitted 
that the duties on imported goods ought to be re- 
duced, and Mr. McLane, Secretary of the Treasury, 
and Mr. Verplanck, Chairman of the Committee of 
Ways and Means, each drew up a plan for lessen- 
ing the burdens of the tariff. 



222 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

Mr. McLane had just returned from a successful 
mission to Great Britain, and had the advantage of 
considerable personal popularity. He was a mod- 
erate protectionist, and with great pains drew up a 
scheme of duties which kept the protection of home 
manufactures in view. Some branches of industry, 
he thought, were so far advanced that they would 
bear a small reduction of the duty; others a still 
larger ; others were yet so weak that they could not 
prosper unless the whole existing duty was retained. 
The scheme was laid before Congress, but met with 
little attention from any quarter ; the southern pol- 
iticians regarded it with scorn, as made up of mere 
cheese-parings. Mr. Verplanck's plan of a tariff was 
more liberal. He was not a protectionist, and his 
scheme contemplated a large reduction of duties — as 
large as it was thought could possibly be adopted by 
Congress — yet so framed as to cause as little incon- 
venience as might be to the manufacturers. It was 
thought that Mr. Calhoun and his friends would read- 
ily accept it as affording them a not ignoble retreat 
from their dangerous position. 

While these projects were before Congress, Mr. 
Littell, a gentleman of the free-trade school, and now 
editor of the Living Age, drew up a scheme of reve- 
nue reform more thorough than either of the others. 



GULIAN CROMMELIN VERPLANCK. 223 

It proposed to reduce the duties annually until, at the 
end of ten years the principle of protection, which 
was what the southern politicians complained of, 
should disappear from the tariff, and a system of du- 
ties take its place which should in no case exceed the 
rate of twenty per cent, on the value of the commodi- 
ty imported. The draft of this scheme was shown to 
Mr. Clay : he saw at once that it would satisfy the 
southern politicians ; he adopted it, brought it before 
Congress, urged its enactment in several earnest 
speeches, and by the help of his great influence over 
his party it was rapidly carried through both Houses, 
under the name of the Compromise Tariff, to the as- 
tonishment of the friends of free-trade, the mill own- 
ers, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Committee of 
Ways and Means, and, I think, the country at large. 
I thought it hard measure for Mr. Verplanck that the 
credit of this reform should be taken out of his hands 
by one who had always been the great advocate of 
protective duties ; but this was one of the fortunate 
strokes of policy which Mr. Clay, when in the vigor 
of his faculties, had the skill to make. He afterwards 
defended the measure as inflicting no injury upon the 
manufacturers, and it never appeared to lessen the 
good will which his party bore him. 

About this time I was witness to a circumstance 



224 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

which showed the sagacity of Mr. Verplanck in es- 
timating the consequences of poUtical measures. Mr. 
Van Buren had been sent by President Jackson as 
our Minister to the British Court while Congress 
was not in session, and the nomination yet awaited 
confirmation by the Senate. It led to a long and 
spirited debate, in which Mr. Marcy uttered the 
memorable maxim : " To the victor belong the spoils 
of the enemy," which was so often quoted against 
him. I was in Washington, dining with Mr. Ver- 
planck, when the vote on this nomination was taken. 
As we were at the table, two of the Senators, Dick- 
inson, of New Jersey, and Tazewell, of Virginia, en- 
tered. Verplanck, turning to them asked eagerly : 
"How has it gone.-*" Dickinson, extending his left 
arm, with the fingers closed, swept the other hand 
over it, striking the fingers open, to signify that the 
nomination was rejected. 

" There," said Verplanck, " that makes Van Bu- 
ren President of the United States." Verplanck 
was by no means a partisan of Van Buren, but he 
saw what the effect of that vote would be, and his 
prediction was, in due time verified. 

While in Congress, Mr. Verplanck procured the 
enactment of a law for the further security of literary 
property. To use his own words, it " gave additional 



GULIAN CROMMELIN VERPLANCK. 225 

security to the property of authors and artists in 
their works, and more than doubled the term of legal 
protection to them, besides simplifying the law in va- 
rious respects." It was passed in 1831, though Mr. 
Verplanck had begun to urge the measure three years 
before, when he brought in a bill for the purpose, 
but party strife was then at its height, and little else 
than the approaching elections were thought of by 
the members of Congress. When party heat had 
cooled a little, he gained their attention, and his bill 
became a law. If we had now in Congress a mem- 
ber so much interested for the rights of authors and 
artists, and at the same time so learned, so honored 
and persevering, we might hope that the inhospitable 
usage which makes the property of the American au- 
thor in Great Britain and of the British author in the 
United States the lawful prize of whosoever chooses 
to apropriate it to himself, would be abolished. 

A dinner was given to Verplanck on his return 
from Washington, in the name of several literary 
gentlemen of New York ; but the expense was, in 
fact, defrayed by a generous and liberal-minded book- 
seller, Elam Bliss, who held authors in high vener? 
tion and only needed a more discriminating percep- 
tion of literary merit to make him, in their eyes at 
least, a perfect bookseller. On this occasion Mr. 



226 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

Verplanck spoke well and modestly of the part he 
had taken in procuring the passage of the new law ; 
mentioned with especial honor the " first and ablest 
champion" who had then "appeared in this cause," 
the Hon. Willard Phillips, who had discussed the 
question in the North American Reviczv ; referred 
to the opinions of various eminent publicists, and 
pointed out that our own Constitution had recog- 
nized the right of literary property while it left to 
Congress the duty of securing it. He closed with 
an animated view of what American literature ought 
to be and might be under circumstances favorable to 
its wholesome and vigorous growth. We listened 
with delight and were proud of our Representative. 

During Mr. Verplauck's fourth and last term in 
Congress he became separated from his associates of 
the Democratic party by a difference in regard to the 
Bank of the United States. General Jackson had 
laid rough hands on this institution and removed to 
the State banks the public money which had till 
then been entrusted to its keeping. Many of our 
best men had then a high opinion of the utility of the 
Bank, and thought much better of its management 
than, as afterwards appeared, it deserved. The 
Whig party declared itself in favor of the Bank. Mr. 
Calhoun and the Southern politicians of his immedi- 



GULIAN CROMMELIN VERPLANCK. 22/ 

ate school joined them on this question, and Mr. 
Verplanck, who regarded the bank with a friendly 
eye, found himself on the same side, which proved 
to be the minority. The time arrived for another 
election of members of Congress from this city. 
The Democratic party desired to re-elect Mr. Ver- 
planck, if some assurance could be obtained from 
him that he would not oppose the policy of the Ad- 
ministration in regard to the Bank. That party un- 
derstood very well his merits and his usefulness, 
and made a strong effort to retain him, but he would 
give no assurance, even to pursue a neutral course, 
on the bank question, and accordingly his name was 
reluctantly dropped from their list of nominations. 
A long separation ensued between him and those 
who up to that time had been his political associates. 
In 1834, the Whig party, looking for a strong can- 
didate for the mayoralty of the city, offered the nom- 
ination to Verplanck, who accepted it. On the other 
side, the Democrats brought forward Cornelius W. 
Lawrence, a man of popular manners and unques- 
tioned integrity. Those were happy days when, in 
voting for a mayor, the citizen could be certain that 
he would not vote amiss, and that whoever succeeded 
in the election, the city was sure of an honest man 
for its chief officer. One would have thought that 



228 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

this consideration might make the election a quiet 
one, but it was not so ; the struggle was for party su- 
premacy, and it was violent on both sides. At that 
time the polls were kept open for three days, and 
each day the excitement increased : disorders took 
place ; some heads were broken, and at last it ap- 
peared that Lawrence was elected mayor by a major- 
ity of about two hundred votes. 

While in Congress, Verplanck had leisure, during 
the interval between one session and another, for lit- 
erary occupations. He wrote about one-third of an 
annual collection of miscellanies entitled the Talis- 
man, which was published by Dr. Bliss in the year 
1827 and the two following years. To these volumes 
he contributed the Peregriiiations of Pctrtis Mttdd, 
a humorous and lively sketch, founded on the travels 
of a New Yorker of the genuine old stock, who, when 
he returned from wandering over all Europe and part 
of Asia, set himself down to study geography in order 
to know where he had been. Of the graver articles 
he wrote Dc Goiirges, a chapter from the history of 
the Huguenot colonists of this country, Gclyna, a 
Tale of Albany and Ticondcroga, and several others. 
In conjunction with Robert C. Sands, a writer of a 
peculiar vein of quaint humor, he contributed two 
papers to the collection, entitled Scenes in Washing- 



J 



GULIAN CROMMELIN VERPLANCK. 229 

ton, of a humorous and satirical character. He dis- 
Hked the manual labor of writing and was fond of 
dictating while another held the pen. I was the third 
contributor to the Talisman, and sometimes acted as 
his amanuensis. In estimating Verplanck's literary 
character, these compositions, some of which are 
marked by great beauty of style and others by a rich 
humor, should not be overlooked. The first volume 
of the Talisman was put in type by a young English- 
man named Cox, who, while working at his desk as a 
printer, composed a clever review of the work, which 
appeared in the Neiv York Mirror, and of which 
Verplanck often spoke with praise. 

In 1833, Verplanck collected his public discourses 
into a volume. Among these is one delivered in Au- 
gust of that year, at Columbia College, in which he 
holds up to imitation the illustrious examples of great 
men educated at that institution. In one of those 
passages of stately eloquence which he knew so well 
how to frame, he speaks of the worth of his old adver- 
sary, De Witt Clinton, the first graduate of the College 
after the peace of 1783, and pays due "honor to that 
lofty ambition which taught him to look to designs of 
grand utility, and to their successful execution as his 
arts of gaining or redeeming the confidence of a gen- 
erous and public-spirited people." In the same dis- 



230 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

course he pronounced the eulogy of Dr. Mason, who 
had died a few days before. In the same year, Ver- 
planck, at Geneva College, delivered an address on 
the " Right Moral Influence and Use of Liberal 
Studies," and the next year, at Amherst College, an- 
other on the converse of that subject, namely, the 
" Influence of Moral Causes upon Opinion, Science and 
Literature." In 1836, he gave a discourse on "The 
Advantages and Dangers of the American Scholar." 
Of these addresses let me say, that I know of no 
compositions of their class which I read with more 
pleasure or more instruction. Enlarged views, ele- 
vated sentiments, a hopeful and courageous spirit, a 
wide knowledge of men and men's recorded experi- 
ence, and a manly dignity of style, mark them all as 
productions of no common mind. 

After separating from the Democratic party, Mr. 
Verplanck was elected by the Whigs, in 1837, to the 
Senate of the State of New York, while that body was 
yet a Court for the Correction of Errors, — a tribunal 
of the last resort, — and in that capacity decided ques- 
tions of law of the highest magnitude and importance. 
Nothing in his life was more remarkable than the new 
character in which he now appeared. The practised 
statesman, the elegant scholar and the writer of grace- 
ful sketches, the satirist, the critic, the theologian, 



GULIAN CROMMELIN VERPLANCK. 23 1 

started up a profound jurist. During the four years 
in which he sat in this court, he heard the arguments 
in nearly every case which came before it, and deliv- 
ered seventy-one opinions — not simply his written 
conclusions, but elaborate judgments founded on the 
closest investigation of the questions submitted, the 
most careful and exhaustive examination of authori- 
ties, and a practical, comprehensive and familiar ac- 
quaintance with legal rules and principles, even those 
of the most technical nature, which astonished those 
who knew that he had never appeared for a client 
in court, nor sat before in a judicial tribunal. I 
use in this the language of an able lawyer, Judge 
Daly, who has made this part of Verplanck's labors a 
subject of special study. 

As examples of his judicial ability, I may instance 
his examination of the whole structure of our State 
and Federal Government in the case of Delafield 
against the State of Illinois, where the question came 
up whether an individual could sue a State ; his sur- 
vey of the whole law of marine insurance and the prin- 
ciples on which it is founded, in the case of the Amer- 
ican Insurance Company against Bryan; his admi- 
rable statement of the reasons on which rests the 
law of prescription, or right established by usage, in 
the case of Post against Pearsall ; his exposition of the 



232 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

extent of the right which in this country the owners 
of land on the borders of rivers and navigable streams 
have in the bed of the river, in Kempshall's case — a 
masterly opinion, in which the whole court concurred. 
I might also mention the great case of Alice Lispe- 
nard, in which he considered the degree of mental 
capacity requisite to make a will, a case involving a 
vast amount of property in this city, decided by his 
opinion. There is also the case of Smith against 
Acker, relating to the taint of fraud in mortgages of 
personal property, in which he carried the court with 
him against the Chancellor and overturned all the 
previous decisions. Not less important is his elabo- 
rate, learned and exhaustive opinion in the case of 
Thompson against the People, decided by a single 
vote and by his opinion, — in which he examined the 
true nature of franchises conferred on individuals in 
this country by the sovereign power, the right to con- 
struct bridges over navigable streams, and the proper 
operation of the writ of quo warranto. These opin- 
ions of Verplanck form an important part of the le- 
gal literature of our State. If he had made the law 
his special pursuit, and been placed on the bench of 
one of our higher tribunals, there is no degree of ju- 
dicial eminence to which he might not have aspired. 
The Standing Committee of the Diocese of New York, 



GULIAN CROMMELIN VERPLANCK. 233 

of which he was a member, in their resolutions ex- 
pressive of sorrow for his death, spoke of him as one 
whose judicial wisdom and familiarity with the princi- 
ples and practice of the law, made his counsels of the 
highest value. 

In 1844, after, I doubt not, some years of pre- 
vious study, appeared the first number of Verplanck's 
edition of Shakspeare, issued by Harper & Brothers. 
The numbers appeared from time to time till 1847, 
when the work was completed. He made some cor- 
rections of the text but never rashly ; he selected the 
notes of other commentators with care ; . he added 
some excellent ones of his own, and wrote admirable 
critical and historical prefaces to the different plays. 
This edition has always seemed to me the very one 
for which the general reader has occasion. 

Almost ever since the American Revolution a 
Board of Regents of the University of the State of 
New York has existed, on which is laid the duty of 
visiting and superintending in a general way our in- 
stitutions of education above the degree of Common 
Schools. It consists of twenty-three members, in- 
cluding the Governor and Lieutenant-Governor, the 
Secretary of State and the Superintendent of Public 
Instruction ; the other nineteen members are appoint- 
ed by the Legislature. The Board assists at the in- 



234 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES.- 

corporation of all colleges and academies, looks into 
their condition, interposes in certain specified cases, 
receives reports from them and makes annual reports 
to the Legislature, and confers by diploma such de- 
grees as are granted by any college or university in 
Europe. Mr. Verplanck was appointed a member of 
this Board in 1826, in place of Matthew Clarkson, 
who had been a Regent ever since 1787. In 1855 
he was appointed Vice-Chancellor of the University, 
and to the time of his death punctually attended the 
meetings of the Board, shared in its discussions and 
bore his part in its various duties. In 1844 the State 
Library was placed under the superintendence of the 
Regents. Mr. Verplanck was immediately put on 
the Library Committee, where his knowledge of 
books and editions of books made his services inval- 
uable. There were then about ten thousand volumes 
in the collection, and many of these consisted of 
broken sets. Under the care of the Regents — Mr. 
Verplanck principally, who gave it his particular at- 
tention — it has grown into a well selected, well ar- 
ranged library of more than eighty-two thousand vol- 
umes. About the same time the State Cabinets of 
Natural History were put under the care of the 
Board, and these have equally prospered, every year 
adding to their extent, until- now the Regents publish 



GULIAN CROMMELIN VERPLANCK. 235 

annually, catalogues of the additions made to them 
from various sources, and, occasionally, papers com- 
municated by experts in natural history. 

Every year in the month of August a University 
Convocation is held at Albany, to which are invited 
all the leading teachers and professors of our colleges 
and academies, and carefully prepared papers rela- 
ting to education are read. At the first of these con- 
ventions, in 1863, Mr. D. J. Pratt, now the Assistant 
Secretary of the Board, had read a paper on " Lan- 
guage as the Chief Educator and the noblest Liberal 
Art," in which he dwelt upon the importance of 
studying the ancient classic authors in their original 
tongues. Mr. Verplanck remarked that in what he 
had to say he would content himself with relating an 
anecdote respecting the first Napoleon, which he had 
from a private source, and which had never been in 
print. The Emperor wishing to keep himself ad- 
vised of what was passing in the University of 
France, yet without attracting public attention, was 
wont on certain occasions to send to the University 
a trustworthy and intelligent person from his house- 
hold, who was to bring back a report. This man at 
one time reported that the question of paying more 
attention to the mathematical sciences had been agi- 
tated. On this Napoleon exclaimed with emphasis : 



236 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

" Go to the Polytechnic for mathematics, but classics, 
classics, classics for the University." At another 
time Verplanck, still occupied with his favorite stud- 
ies, gave the convention an address on the pronunci- 
ation of the Latin language, in which he came to the 
conclusion that of all the branches of the Latin race, 
the Portuguese, in their pronunciation of Latin, make 
the nearest approach to that of the ancient Romans. 
He was desired by the members of the Board to 
write out the address for publication, but this was 
never done. Verplanck, as I have already remarked, 
was an unwilling scribe, and did not like to handle 
the pen. 

The Annual Report of the Regents, which are 
voluminous documents, give much the same view of 
the arrangements for public education in the State as 
is obtained of a country by looking down upon it from 
an observatory. Every college, every academy, every 
school, not merely a private enterprise, and above the 
degree of common schools, makes its yearly report to 
the Regents, and these are embodied in the general 
report which they make to the legislature, so that the 
whole great system, with all its appendages, its libra- 
ries, its revenues, its expenditures, the number of its 
teachers and its pupils, and the opportunities of in- 
struction which it gives, lies before the eye of the 



GUI JAN CROMMELIN VERPLANCK. 237 

reader. It now comprehends twenty Colleges of Lit- 
erature and Science, three Law Departments, two 
Medical Colleges, two hundred or more Academies, 
or schools of that class, besides the Normal school at 
Albany. 

In his discourse delivered before this Society in 
1 818, Mr. Verplanck had apostrophized his native 
country as the Land of Refuge. He could not then 
have foreseen how well in aftertimes it would deserve 
this name, nor what labors and responsibilities the 
care of that mighty throng who resort to our shores 
for work and bread would cast upon him. Shortly 
before the year 1847 the number of emigrants from 
Europe arriving in our country had rapidly and sur- 
prisingly increased. The famine in Ireland had 
caused the people of that island to migrate to ours in 
swarms like those which the populous North poured 
from her frozen loins to overwhelm the Roman Em- 
pire. In the ten years from 1845 to 1854 inclusive, 
more than a million and a half of Irish emigrants left 
the United Kingdom. The emigration from Ger- 
many had also prodigiously increased and promised 
to become still larger. All these were exposed, and 
the Germans in a particular manner, on account of 
their ignorance of our language, to the extortions of a 
knavish class, called runners, and of the keepers of 



238 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

boarding-houses, who often defrauded them of all 
that they possessed, and left them to charity. Most 
of those who, after these extortions, had the means, 
made their way into the interior and settled upon 
farms, but a large number remained to become mem- 
bers of the almshouse, or to starve and sicken in 
crowded and unwholesome rooms. Mr. Kapp, for 
some time a Commissioner of Emigration, relates, in 
his interesting work on Emigration, an example of the 
manner in which these poor creatures were cheated. 
An emigrant came to a boarding-house keeper to pay 
his bill : " It is eighteen dollars," said the landlord. 
"Why," said the emigrant, "did you not agree to 
board me for sixpence a meal and threepence for a 
bed .-* " " Yes," was the answer, " and that is just sev- 
enty-five cents a day ; you have been here eight days, 
and that makes just eighteen dollars." 

These things had become a grievous scandal, 
and it was clear that something must be done to pro- 
tect the emigrant from pillage, and the country from 
the burden of his support. The Act of May, 1847, 
was therefore passed by the New York Legislature. 
It named six gentlemen of the very highest charac- 
ter, Gulian C. Verplanck, James Boorman, Jacob 
Harvey, Robert B. Minturn, William F. Havemeyer, 
and David C. Colden, who were to form a Board of 



GULIAN CROMMELIN VERPLANCK. 239 

Commissioners of Emigration, charged with the over- 
sight and care of this vast influx of strangers from 
the Old World. To these were added the Mayors 
of New York and Brooklyn, and the Presidents of 
the German Society and the Irish Emigrant Society. 
Every master of a vessel was, within twenty-four 
hours of his arrival, to give this Board a list of his 
passengers, with a report of their origin, age, occu- 
pation, condition, health and other particulars, and 
either give bonds to save the community from the 
cost of maintaining them in case they became pau- 
pers, or pay for each of them the sum of two dollars 
and a half The payment of money has been pre- 
ferred, and this has put into the hands of the Com- 
missioners a liberal revenue, faithfully applied to the 
advantage of the emigrants. 

Mr. Havemeyer was chosen President of the 
Board, but resigned the office after a few months, 
and was succeeded in it by Mr. Verplanck, who held 
it till the day of his death. Under the management 
of the Commissioners, the Bureau of Emigration, be- 
coming with almost every year more perfectly adapt- 
ed to its purpose, has grown to vast dimensions, 
till it is now like one of the departments of gov- 
ernment in a great empire. Whoever passes by 
Ward's Island, where the tides of the East River and 



240 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

the Sound meet and rush swiftly to and fro through 
their narrow channels, will have some idea of what 
the Board has done, as he sees the domes and spires 
of that great cluster of buildings, forming a vast car- 
avanserai in which the poorer class of emigrants are 
temporarily lodged, before they can be sent into the 
interior or find employment here. Here are barracks 
for the men, a spacious building for the women and 
children, a nursery for children of a tender age. 
Catholic and Protestant chapels, a dispensary, work- 
shops, a lunatic asylum, fever wards, surgical wards, 
storehouses, residences of the physicians and other 
persons employed in the care of the place, and out- 
houses and offices of various kinds. Here, too, rise 
the stately turrets of the spacious new hospital styled 
the Verplanck Emigrant Hospital, in honor of the 
great philanthropist, for such his constant ^nd noise- 
less labors in this department of charity entitle him 
to be called. 

The Commissioners found that they could not 
protect the emigrants from imposition without a spe- 
cial landing-place from which they could wholly ex- 
clude the rascal crew who cheated them. It took 
eight years to obtain this from the New York Legis- 
lature, but at last, in 1855, it was granted, and the 
old fort at the foot of Manhattan Island, called Castle 



GULIAN CROMMELIN VERPLANCK. 24I 

Garden, was leased for this purpose. This is now 
the Emigrants' Landing, the gate of the New World 
for those who, pressing westward, throng into it from 
the Old. Night and day it is open, and through this 
passage the vast tide of stranger population, which is 
to mingle with and swell our own, rushes like the cur- 
rent of the Bosphorus from the Black Sea hurry- 
ing towards the Propontis and the Hellespont to fill 
the great basin of the Mediterranean. What will be 
the condition of mankind when the populations of 
the two hemispheres, the East and the West, shall 
have found, as they must, a common level, and when 
the human race, now struggling for room in its 
ancient abodes, shall look in vain for some unoccu- 
pied, region where a virgin soil is waiting to reward 
the laborer with bread .-* 

As he enters Castle Garden the emigrant un- 
dergoes inspection by a competent physician, and if 
he be aged, sick, or in any way disabled, the master 
of the vessel must give a special bond for his main- 
tenance. He is introduced into the building — here 
he finds one department in which he is duly register- 
ed, another from which he receives such information 
as a stranger requires, another from which his lug- 
gage is dispatched to its destination, another at 
which attend clerks, skilled in the languages of con- 



242 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

tinental Europe, to write his letters, another at which 
railway tickets are procured without danger of ex- 
tortion, another at which fair arrangements are 
made with boarding-houses, another from which, if 
sick or destitute, he is sent to Ward's Island, and 
half a dozen others important as helps to one who 
has no knowledge of the usages of the country to 
which he has come, I refer to these arrangements, 
among a multitude of others, in order to show what 
administrative talent and what constant attention 
were necessary to ensure the regular and punctual 
working of so vast a system. To this duty Mr. Ver- 
planck, aided by able and disinterested associates 
like himself, gave the labors of a third of a century, 
uncompensated save by the consciousness of doing 
good. The composition of this Board has just been 
changed by the Legislature of the State, in such a 
manner as unfortunately to introduce party influ- 
ences, from which, during all the time of Mr. Ver- 
planck's connection with it, it had been kept wholly 
free. 

Yet Mr. Verplanck had his party attachments, 
though he never suffered them to lead him out of the 
way he had marked for himself. He would accom- 
pany a party, but never follow it. His party rec- 
ord is singular enough. He was educated a Feder- 



GULIAN CROMMELIN VERPLANCK. 243 

alist, but early in life found himself acting against 
the Federal party. He was with the Whigs in sup- 
porting General Harrison for the Presidency, and 
claimed the credit of suggesting his nomination. 
Mr. Clay he would never support on account of his 
protectionist principles, and when that gentleman, 
was nominated by the Whigs he left them and voted 
for Mr. Polk, though he was disgusted by the trick 
which obtained the vote of Pennsylvania for Mr. Polk 
imder the pretence of his being a protectionist. 
Subsequently he supported General Taylor, the Whig 
candidate for the Presidency ; but the nomination of 
Mr. Buchanan, in 1857, saw him once more with the 
Democrats, from whom he did not again separate. 
When the proposal to make government paper a legal 
tender for debts was before Congress, he opposed it 
with great zeal, writing against it in the Democratic 
journals. I agreed with him that the measure was 
an act of folly, for which I could find no excuse, but 
he almost regarded it as a public crime. He vehe- 
mently disapproved, also, of the arbitrary arrests 
made by our government during the war, some of 
which, without question, were exceedingly ill advised. 
His zeal on these points, I think, made him blind to 
the great issues involved in our late civil war, and 
led his usually clear and liberal judgment astray. 



244 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

I have not yet mentioned various capacities in 
which he served the public without any motive but to 
minister to the public welfare. He was from a very 
early period a Trustee of the Society Library, in which 
he took great interest, delighting to make additions to 
its stock of books, and passing much time in its al- 
coves and its reading-rooms. He was one of the 
wardens of Trinity Church, that mistress of mighty 
revenues. He was for some years one of the gover- 
nors of the New York Hospital, and I remember when 
he made periodical visits to the Insane Asylum at 
Bloomingdale, as one invested with authority there. 
During the existence of the Public School Society he 
was one of its Trustees, — from 1834 to 1841, — and 
rendered essential service to the cause of public edu- 
cation. 

His useful life closed on the eighteenth of March 
last. For some months before this date his strength 
had declined ; and when I met him from time to 
time it seemed to me that his features had become 
sharper and his frame more attenuated ; yet I per- 
ceived no diminution of mental vigor. He took the 
same interest in the events and questions of the 
day as he had done years before, his apprehension 
seemed as quick, and all the powers of his mind as 
active. 



GULIAN CROMMELIN VERPLANCK. 



245 



On the Wednesday before his death he attended 
one of those weekly meetings which he took care 
never to miss, that of the Commissioners of Emigra- 
tion. But in one of his walks on a rainy day he had 
taken a cold which resulted in a congestion of the 
lungs. Qn Thursday evening he lay upon a sofa, 
conversing from time to time, after his usual manner, 
until near midnight. On Friday morning, when his 
body servant entered the room and looked at him, he 
perceived a change and called his grandson, who, with 
a granddaughter, had constantly attended him during 
the past winter. The grandson immediately went for 
his physician, Dr. Carnochan, who, however, was not- 
to be found, and whose assistant, a young man, came 
in his stead. Mr. Verplanck, in a way which was 
characteristic of him, studied the young man's face 
for a moment and then asked : " From what college 
were you graduated ? " The reply was — " Paris ; " 
on which Mr. Verplanck turned away as if it did not 
much please him, and in a moment afterward expired. 
He was spared the previous suffering which so many 
are called to endure. His son had visited him from 
time to time, and was with him the day before his 
death ; yet this event was unexpected to all the family. 
His father, in his old age, had as suddenly passed 
away, having fallen dead by the wayside. 



246 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

The private life of our friend was as beautiful as 
his public life was useful and beneficent. He took 
great interest in the education of his grandchildren ; 
inquired into their studies, talked with them of the 
books they read, and sought with great success to 
make them fond of all good learning, directing their 
attention to all that was noble in literature and in art. 
His mind was a storehouse of facts in history and 
biography, on which he drew for their entertainment, 
and vipon occasion diversified the graver narratives 
with fairy tales and stories of wonder from the Ara- 
bian Nights. He made learning pleasant to them by 
taking them on Saturdays to places of amusement, 
from which he contrived that they should return not 
only amused but instructed. In short, it seemed as 
if, in his solicitude for the education of his descend- 
ants, he sought to repay the cares bestowed upon his 
early youth by his grandfather of Stratford, of whom 
he said in his discourse delivered at Amherst College, 
that his best education was bestowed by the more 
than paternal care of one of the wisest and most ex- 
cellent sons of New England. Long after he was an 
old man he would make pleasant summer journeys 
with these young people, and look to their comfort 
and safety with the tenderest solicitude. 

Christmas was merry Christmas at the old family 



GULIAN CROMMELIN VERPLANCK. 247 

mansion in Fishkill. He caused the day to be kept 
with many of the ancient usages, to the great satis- 
faction of the younger members of the household. 
He was fond of observing particular days and sea- 
sons, and marking them by some pleasant custom of 
historical significance — for with all the ancient cus- 
tom and rites and pastimes pertaining to them he was 
as familiar as if they were matters of to-day. It dis- 
tressed him even to tears when, last Christmas, he 
found that his health did not allow him to make the 
journey to Fishkill as usual. He made much of the 
birthdays of his grandchildren, and taught them to 
observe that of Shakspeare by adorning the dwell- 
ing with flowers mentioned in those aerial verses of 
the Winter's Tale, 

" dafFodils, 

That come before the swallow dares and take 
The winds of March with beauty ; violets dim, 
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes 
Or Cytherea's breath ; pale primroses 
That die unmarried," etc., etc. 

For many years past he had divided his time pret- 
ty equally between Fishkill and New York, visiting 
the homestead in the latter part of the week and re- 
turning in time to attend the weekly meetings of the 
Commissioners of Emigration. While in the country 
he was a great deal in the open air, superintending 



248 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

the patrimonial estate, which he managed with abili- 
ty as a man of business, giving a careful attention 
even to the minutest details. But he was most 
agreeably employed in his large and well-stored libra- 
ry. Here were different editions of the Greek and 
Latin classics, some of them rare and enriched with 
sumptuous illustrations — thirty different ones of Hor- 
ace and nearly as many of Virgil. With the Greek 
tragedians he was as familiar as with our own Shak- 
speare. In this library he wrote for the Crayon his 
entertaining paper on Garrick and his poi'trait, and 
his charming little volume entitled Twelfth Night at 
the Century Clnb. Here also he wrote several pa- 
pers respecting the true interpretation of certain pas- 
sages in Virgil, which were published in the Evening 
Post. It is to be regretted that he did not collect and 
publish his literary papers, which ■ would form a very 
agreeable miscellany. He seemed, however, almost 
indifferent . to literary fame, and when he had once 
sent forth into the world an essay or a treatise, left 
it to its fate as an affair which was now off his 
hands. 

On Sunday morning he was always at the old church j 
in the village of Fishkill, one of the most attentive \ 
and devout worshippers there. It is an ancient build- 
ing of homely architecture, looking now just as it didl 



GULIAN CROMMELIN VERPLANCK. 249 

a century ago, with a big old pulpit and sounding 
board in the midst of the church, which the people 
would have been glad to remove, but refrained, be- 
cause Mr. Verplanck, whom they so venerated, pre- 
ferred that it should remain. 

The patrimonial mansion at Fishkill had historical 
associations which must have added to the interest 
with which our friend regarded it. Mr. Tuckerman 
relates, in the Noi^th American Review, though with- 
out naming the place or the persons, a story in which 
they were brought out in a singular manner. He was 
there fifteen or twenty years since, a guest at Ver- 
planck's table. He describes the June sunshine, 
which played through the shifting branches of tall 
elms, on the smooth oaken floor of the old dining- 
room, the plate of antique pattern on the sideboard, 
and the portraits of revolutionary heroes on the walls. 
As they sat down to dinner, an old lady, bowed with 
years and with a restless, yet serene look, entered 
and took a seat beside Mr. Verplanck. A servant 
adjusted a napkin under her chin and the dinner pro- 
ceeded. A steamer was passing up the river and a 
band on board struck up a martial air. The old lady 
trembled, clasped her hands, and, raising her eyes, 
exclaimed, " Ah ! all intercession is vain. Andr6 
must die." Mr. Verplanck made a sign to the com- 



250 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

pany to listen, and calling the lady Aunt, addressed 
her with some kind inquiry, on which she went on to 
speak of the events and personages of the Revolution 
as matters of the present day. She repeated rapidly 
the names of the English officers whom she had 
known, " described her lofty head-dress of ostrich 
feathers, which caught fire at the theatre, and repeat- 
ed the verses of her admirer who was so fortunate as 
to extinguish it." She dwelt upon the majestic bear- 
ing of Washington, the elegance of the French, the 
dogmatism of the British officers ; the by-words, the 
names of gallants, belles and heroes ; the incidents, 
the questions, the etiquette of those times seemed to 
live again in her tremulous accents, which gradually 
became feeble, until she fell asleep ! " It was," con- 
tinued the narrator, " like a voice from the grave." 
This old lady was a Miss Walton, a sister of Judge 
Verplanck's second wife. 

When he found time for the studies by which his 
mind was kept so full of useful and curious knowl- 
edge, I cannot well conceive. He loved to protract 
an interesting conversation into the small hours of 
the night, and he was by no means, as it is said most 
long-lived men are, an early riser. An anecdote re- 
lated by a gentleman of the New York bar will serve 
to illustrate, in some degree, his desultory habits 



GULIAN CROMMELIN VERPLANCK. 25 1 

during that part of his time which was passed in 
New York. This gentleman gave a dinner at Del- 
monico's, then in William Street, to a professional 
brother from another city, who was in town only 
for the day. Mr. Verplanck, Judge William Kent, 
and one or two other clever lawyers, were of the 
party. I will allow him to tell the story in his own 
words. 

" We of course," he says, " had a delightful even- 
ing, for our stranger guest was a diamond ; Kent was 

never more charming and witty ; Mr. never more 

stately and brilliant, and Verplanck was in his most 
genial mood, full of his peculiarly interesting, grace- 
ful and instructive conversation. The spirit of the 
hour was unrestrained and cordial. We had a good 
time, and it was not early when the dispersion began. 
Verplanck and Kent remained with us after the 
others withdrew, and as midnight approached, Kent 
also departed. After a while Verplanck and I went 
forth and sauntered along in the darkness through 
the deserted streets, among the tenantless and 
gloomy houses, till we reached the point where his 
path would diverge for Broadway and up-town, and 
mine for Fulton Ferry and Brooklyn Heights. In- 
stead of leaving me the good philosopher volunteered 
to keep on with me to the river, and when we reach- 



252 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

ed the river, proposed to remain with me until the 
boat arrived, and then proposed to cross the river 
with me. We were, I tliink, the only passengers, 
and his conversation continued to flow as fresh and 
intei'esting as at the dinner-table until we reached 
the Brooklyn shore. He declined to pass the rest of 
the night at my house, and while I waited with him 
till the boat should leave the wharf to take him back, 
the night editor of the Courier and Enquirer, a clever 
and accomplished gentleman, came on board on the 
way to his nocturnal labors. I introduced them to 
each other, they were at once in good accord, I 
saw them off and went homeward. A day or two 
after I learned that when they reached the New 
York shore, Verplanck volunteered to stroll down to 
the Courier office with the editor, accepted his invi- 
tation to walk in, ascending with him to his room in 
the attic, and, to the editor's great delight and edifi- 
cation, remained with him, conversing, reading and 
ruminating until broad daylight. There was a charm 
in Mr. Verplanck's conversation that was distinct- 
ive and peculiar. It was ' green pastures and still 
waters.' " 

Our friend had, it is true, a memory which faith- 
fully retained the acquisitions made in early life, but, 
in some way or other, was continually enlarging 



GULIAN CROMMELIN VERPLANCK. 253 

them. I think I have never known one whose 
thoughts were so much with the past, whose memory- 
was so famihar with the words and actions of those 
who inhabited the earth before us, and who so loved 
and reverenced the worthy examples they have given 
us, yet who so much interested himself in the pres- 
ent and was so hopeful of the future. There was 
no tendency of this shifting and changeful age which 
he did not observe, no new discovery made, no new 
theory started, no untrodden path of speculation 
opened to human thought, which did not immediately 
engage his attention, and of which he had not some- 
thing instructive to say. He was as familiar with the 
literature of the day as are the crowd of common 
readers who know no other ; yet he suffered not the 
brilliant novelties of the hour to wean his admiration 
from the authors whose reputation has stood the test 
of time. He was generous, however, to rising merit, 
and took pleasure in commending it to the attention 
of others. 

His learning was not secular merely ; his library 
was well stocked with works on theology ; he was 
familiar with the questions discussed in them ; the 
New Testament, in the original, was a part of his 
daily reading ; he had examined the dark or doubtful 
passages of Scripture, and they who were much in 



254 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

his society needed no more satisfactory commentator. 
Not long since he sent to the Society Library for a 
theological work rather out of date. " It is the first 
time that work was ever called for," said the librarian, 
smiling, as he took it from the shelf and aired the 
leaves a little. 

His kindness to his fellow-men was shown more 
in deeds than in words — for of words of compliment 
he was particularly sparing ; and he loved to do good 
by stealth. A letter from his pastor, the Rev. Dr. 
Shelton, says : " He was very kind and affectionate 
when he thought he discovered merit in anybody, 
however humble ; and though he dropped never so 
much as a hint to the individual himself, he was pretty 
sure to speak a good word for him in quarters where it 
would have an influence. A great many never knew 
whom they had to thank for this. Here he recommend- 
ed some one for a place, there he picked up a book 
or a set of books for some distant library. In this 
way he went about doing good, and, not given to im- 
pulse, was systematically benevolent." A letter from 
another hand speaks of the clergymen whom he had 
put in the way of getting a parish, the youths for 
whom he had procured employment — favors quietly 
conferred, when perhaps the person benefited had 
forgotten the application or given up the pursuit. He 



GULIAN CROMMELIN VERPLANCK. 255 

preserved carefully all that related to those persons 
in whom he took a kindly interest. "Never," says 
Dr. Shelton, " did a juvenile letter come to him that 
he did not carefully put away. Whole packages of 
them are found among his papers ; if they had been 
State documents they could not have been more im- 
portant in his eyes." 

I have spoken of the hopefulness of his temper. 
This was doubtless in a great degree constitutional, 
for he is said to have been an utter stranger to phys- 
ical fear, preserving his calmness on occasions when 
others would be in a fever of alarm. He loved our 
free institutions, he had a serene and steady confi- 
dence in their duration, and his published writings are 
for the most part eloquent pleas for freedom, political 
equality and toleration. Even the shameless corrup- 
tion which has seized on the local government of this 
city, did not dismay or discourage him. He main- 
tained, in a manner which it was not easy to contro- 
vert, that the great cities of Europe are quite as 
grossly misgoverned, and that every overgrown com- 
munity like ours must find it a difficult task to rid 
itself of the official leeches that seek to fatten on its 
blood. 

In looking back upon the public services of our 
friend, it occurs to me that his life is the more to be 



256 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

held up as an example, inasmuch as, though possessed 
of an ample fortune, he occupied himself as diligently 
in gratuitous labors for the general good as other men 
do in the labors of their profession. In the dispen- 
sation of his income he leaned, perhaps, to the side 
of frugality ; but his daily thought and employment 
were to make his fellow-men happier and better ; yet 
I never knew a man who made less parade of his phi- 
lanthropy. He rarely, and never, save when the oc- 
casion required it, spoke of what he had done for oth- 
ers. I never heard, I think no man ever heard, any- 
thing like a boast proceed from his lips, nor did he 
practice any, even the most innocent expedients, to 
attract attention to his public services. Not that I 
suppose him insensible to the good will and good 
word of his fellow-men. He valued them, doubtless, 
as every wise man must, but sought them not, except 
as they might be earned by the unostentatious per- 
formance of his duty. If they came they were wel- 
come, if not, he was content with the testimony of his 
own conscience and the approval of Him who seeth 
in secret. 

It may be said that in almost every instance the 
place of those who pass from the stage of life is readi- 
ly supplied from among the multitude of those who are 
entering upon it ; the well-graced actor who makes his 



GULIAN CROMMELIN VERPLANCK. 257 

exit is succeeded by another, who soon shows that he 
is as fully competent to perform the part as his prede- 
cessor. But when I look for one to supply the place 
of our friend who has departed, I confess I look in 
vain. I ask, but vainly, where we shall find one with 
such capacities for earning a great name, such large 
endowments of mind and acquisitions of study united 
with such modesty, disinterestedness and sincerity, 
and such steady and various labors for the good of 
our race conjoined with so little desire for the re- 
wards which the world has to bestow on those who 
render it the highest services. But though we sor- 
row for his departure and see not how his honored 
place is to be filled, let us congratulate ourselves and 
the community in which we live, that he was spared 
to us so many years. His day was like one of the 
finest days in the season of the summer solstice, 
bright, unclouded, and long. 

Farewell — thou who hast already entered upon 
thy reward ! happy in this, that thou wert not called 
from thy beneficent labors before the night. Thou 
hadst already garnered an ample harvest ; the sickle 
was yet in thy hand ; the newly reaped sheaves lay 
on the field at thy side, when, as the beams of the 
setting sun trembled on the horizon, the voice of the 
Master summoned thee to thine appointed rest. May 



258 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

all those who are as nobly endowed as thou, and who 
as willingly devote themselves to the service of God 
and mankind, be spared to the world as long as thou 
hast been. 



MISCELLANEOUS ADDRESSES. 



THE PRESS BANQUET TO KOSSUTH. 



THE PRESS BANQUET TO KOSSUTH. 

ADDRESS AT THE BANQUET GIVEN BY THE NEW YORK PRESS 
TO LOUIS KOSSUTH, DECEMBER 9, 1851. 

Gentlemen : — Before announcing the third regu- 
lar toast, which is a very short one, allow me to say a 
very few words. 

Let me ask you to imagine that the contest in 
which the United States asserted their independence 
of Great Britain had closed in disaster and defeat ; 
that our armies, through treason and a league of t}'- 
rants against us, had been broken and scattered ; that 
the great men who led them, and who swayed our 
councils, our Washington, our Franklin, the venerable 
President of the American Congress, and their illus- 
trious associates, had been driven forth as exiles. If 
there had existed at that day, in any part of the 
civilized world, a powerful republic, with institutions 
resting on the same foundations of liberty which our 
own countrymen sought to establish, would there 
have been in that republic any hospitality too cordial, 
any sympathy too deep, any zeal for their glorious 



262 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

but unfortunate cause too fervent or too active to be 
shown towards these iUustrious fugitives ? Gentle- 
men, the case I have supposed is before you. The 
Washingtons, the Frankhns of Hungary, her sages, 
her legislators, her warriors, expelled by a far worse 
tyranny than was ever endured here, are wanderers in 
foreign lands. Some of them are within our own bor- 
ders ; one of them sits with his companions as our 
guest to-night, and we must measure the duty we 
owe them by the same standard which we would have 
had history apply, if our ancestors had met with a 
fate like theirs. 

I have compared the exiled Hungarians to the 
great men of our own history. Difficulty, my breth- 
ren, is the nurse of greatness, a harsh nurse, who 
roughly rocks her foster-children into strength and 
athletic proportion. The mind, grappling with great 
aims and wrestling with mighty impediments, grows 
by a certain necessity to their stature. Scarce any 
thing so convinces me of the capacity of the human 
intellect for indefinite expansion in the different 
stages of its being, as this power of enlarging itself to 
the height and compass of surrounding emergencies. 
These men have been trained to greatness by a 
quicker and surer method than a peaceful country 
and a tranquil period can know. 



LOUIS KOSSUTH. 263 

But it is not merely, or even principally, for their 
personal qualities, that we honor them ; we honor 
them for the cause in which they so gloriously failed. 
Great issues hung upon that cause, and great inter- 
ests of mankind were crushed by its downfall. I 
was on the continent of Europe when the treason of 
Gorgey laid Hungary bound at the feet of the Czar. 
Europe was at that time in the midst of the reaction ; 
the ebb tide was rushing violently back, sweeping all 
that the friends of freedom had planned into the 
black bosom of the deep. In France the liberty of 
the press was extinct ; Paris was in a state of siege ; 
the soldiery of that Republic had just quenched in 
blood the freedom of Rome ; Austria had suppressed 
liberty in Northern Italy ; absolutism was restored in 
Prussia ; along the Rhine and its tributaries, and in 
the towns and villages of Wirtemberg and Bavaria, 
troops, withdrawn from the barracks and garrisons, 
filled the streets and kept the inhabitants quiet with 
the bayonet at their breasts. Hungary, at that mo- 
ment, alone upheld — and upheld with a firm hand 
and dauntless heart — the blazing torch of liberty. 
To Hungary were turned up the eyes,, to Hungary 
clung the hopes of all who did not despair of the 
freedom of Europe. 

I recollect that while the armies of Russia were 



264 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

moving, like tempest from the north, upon the Hun- 
garian host, the progress of events was watched with 
the deepest solicitude by the people of Germany. I 
was at that time in Munich, the splendid capital of 
Bavaria. The Bavarians seemed for the time to have 
put off their usual character, and scrambled for the 
daily prints, wet from the press, with such eagerness 
that I almost thought myself in America. The news 
of the catastrophe at last arrived ; Gorgey had be- 
trayed the cause of Hungary, and yielded to the de- 
mands of the Russians. Immediately a funeral gloom 
settled, like a noon-day darkness, upon the city. I 
heard the muttered exclamations of the people, "It is 
all over ; the last hope of European liberty is gone." 

Russia did not misjudge. If she had allowed 
Hungary to become independent and free, the re- 
action in favor of absolutism had been incomplete : 
there would have been one perilous example of suc- 
cessful resistance to despotism ; in one corner of Eu- 
rope a flame would have been kept alive at which 
the other nations might have rekindled among them- 
selves the light of liberty. Hungary was subdued ; 
but does any one who hears me believe that the 
present state of things in Europe will last? The 
despots themselves scarcely believe it; they rule in 
constant fear, and, made cruel by their fears, are 



LOUIS KOSSUTH. 265 

heaping chain on chain around the hmbs of their 
subjects. 

They are hastening the event they dread. Every 
added shackle galls into a more fiery impatience, 
those who are condemned to wear it. I look with 
mingled hope and horror to the day — the hope, my 
brethren, predominates — a day bloodier, perhaps, 
than we have seen since the wars of Napoleon ; 
when the exasperated nations shall snap their chains 
and start to their feet. It may well be that Hungary, 
made less patient of the yoke by the remembrance 
of her own many and glorious struggles for independ- 
ence, and better fitted than other nations, by the 
peculiar structure of her institutions, for founding the 
liberty of her citizens on a rational basis, will take the 
lead. In that glorious and hazardous enterprise ; 
in that hour of her sore need and peril, I hope she 
will be cheered and strengthened with aid from this 
side the Atlantic ; aid given, not with a parsimonious 
hand ; not with a cowardly and selfish apprehension 
lest we should not err on the safe side — wisely, of 
course. I care not with how broad and comprehen- 
sive a regard to the future — but in large, generous, 
effectual measure. 

And you, our guest, fearless, eloquent, large of 
heart and of mind, whose one thought is the salvation 



266 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

of oppressed Hungary, unfortunate, but undiscour- 
aged, struck down in the battle of liberty, but great 
in defeat, and gathering strength for triumphs to 
come ; receive the assurance at our hands, that in this 
great attempt of man to repossess himself of the 
rights which God gave him, though the strife be 
waged under a distant belt of longitude, and with 
the mightiest despotisms of the world, the Press of 
America will take part — zvill take do I say ? — already 
takes part with you and your countrymen. 

Enough of this, I will detain you from the accents 
to which I know you are impatient to listen only just 
long enough to pronounce the toast of the evening : 

Louis Kossuth. 



THE IMPROVEMENT OF NATIVE 
FRUITS, 



THE IMPROVEMENT OF NATIVE 
FHUITS. 

ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE NEW YORK HORTICUL- 
TURAL SOCIETY AT THE EXHIBITION SEPTEMBER 26, 1856. 

Mr. President and Members of the Horticultural So- 
ciety : 

If I have committed, as I fear I may have done, 
an imprudence in yielding to a request that I should 
address you at this time, the splendid show of fruits 
and flowers on the tables of the Society will, I hope, 
withdraw your attention from my deficiencies. I shall 
be short ; but to be brief is not always the way to es- 
cape being tiresome. 

The last exhibition of this Society was held in 
what was formerly called the season of roses and 
strawberries, the earliest and most delicious fruit of 
the year, and the most beautiful and most agreeably 
fragrant of flowers. Twenty-three hundred years 
ago, — I believe it was nearer twenty-four hundred, — 
the Greek poet Anacreon called the rose the Queen of 
Flowers. Since his time the botanist and the florist 
have explored every nook of the globe, wherever, in 



270 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

the hottest or coldest climates, the green blood flows 
in vegetable veins, — wherever buds swell and blos- 
soms open — and have brought home, to embellish our 
conservatories and gardens, every flower distinguish- 
ed by beauty of form or tint, delicacy of texture or 
grateful perfume, flowers worthy of Paradise, to use 
a phrase of Milton ; yet, among them all, the Rose 
has not found a peer. She has never been de- 
throned, and is still the sovereign of the flowers. 

In Anacreon's time and long after, down to the 
time when Moore, the translator of Anacreon, com- 
posed his song, entitled the " Last Rose of Summer," 
there was an especial season of roses. One flush of 
bloom came over the rose-trees, and then the deli- 
cate leaves were strewn withered on the ground ; 
the fruit appeared in its stead, and there were no 
more roses for that year ; the summer must pass into 
autumn, the autumn into winter, and even the spring 
must approach its close before roses were again 
gathered in our gardens. But it is no longer so, as 
your tables this day bear witness. See what horti- 
culture has done ; how it has prolonged the gentle 
reign of this Queen of Flowers ! The florist comes, 
he takes the roses of warmer climates, which are un- 
accustomed to our seasons, he crosses them with the 
hardier growth of our northern gardens, and obtains 



IMPROVEMENT OF NATIVE FRUITS. 2/1 

plants which endure our winters in the open air, and 
bloom continually from the beginning of June to the 
setting in of the winter frosts. There is now no last 
rose of summer, — summer goes out in a cloud of 
roses ; they spring up under the departing footsteps 
of autumn. Some poet speaks ironically of roses in 
December ; what he meant as an extravagance has 
become the literal truth. I have gathered roses in 
my garden on Long Island on the twentieth of De- 
cember ; last year I broke them from their stems on 
the tenth. It is curious to see 'the plant go on put- 
ting forth its flowers and rearing its clusters of buds 
as if without any presentiment of approaching win- 
ter, till, in the midst of its bloom, it is surprised by a 
frost nipping all its young and tender shoots at once, 
like a sudden failure overtaking one of our men of 
commerce in the midst of his many projects. 

With the strawberry, the horticulturist has 
wrought nearly equal wonders. If we were in 
France now, your tables would show that there is a 
second season of strawberries. There the gardener 
finds means to delay the production of fruit at the 
usual period. When the summer heats are overpast, 
and a temperature like that of June returns, he en- 
courages the blossoms to open and the fruit to ma- 
ture, and in September and October the markets of 



272 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

Paris are fragrant with strawberries, an abundant 
and cheap dessert, even for humble tables. 

These, my friends, are the triumphs of the art you 
cultivate, but it has yet to achieve pecvdiar triumphs 
in our own country. Of the cultivated vegetable 
productions which we inherit from the Old World, 
we have yet to produce or procure varieties suited to 
our soil and climate ; we have yet to introduce new 
fruits and flowers from foreign countries, and we 
have yet to improve and draw forth into new and de- 
sirable varieties, such as are the indigenous growth 
of our soil. On each of these points I shall say a 
few words, though not, I hope, so many as to weary 
you. 

In our country the peach-tree perishes by a sort 
of marasmus, while the tree is yet in the promise of 
its growth. Two or three years' bearing are all that 
we can expect from it, and it then becomes sickly 
and dies prematurely, or is torn from the ground as 
worthless ; and if a new supply is desired, other 
trees must be planted in another spot. We call our 
peaches the best in the world, and with good reason, 
but this is the fate of the tree. There is a remedy, 
if we could but discover it. On Long Island in the 
hedge rows, or among heaps of stones, in neglected 
spots, never turned by the spade or torn by the 



IMPROVEMENT OF NATIVE FRUITS. 273 

plough, you may see peach-trees, self-planted, which 
flourish in full vigor, with leaves of the darkest and 
glossiest green, bearing fruit every year, and surviv- 
ing generation after generation of their brethren of 
the gardens. In the soil and situation of these 
places exist the qualities which are necessary to the 
health of the peach-tree. What are they .'' Can the 
practical gardener determine.'' Can the chemist.? 
The question is worthy of long and most careful re- 
search. 

The peach-tree is said to have come originally 
from Persia ; the botanists recognize that country as 
its birth-place, and give it the name oi persica. But 
it is more than probable that it had a remoter and 
more Eastern origin, since in China it has been culti- 
vated from time immemorial. From China comes the 
flat peach, a remarkable production, with the stone 
on one side and the fleshy part of the peach on the 
other. There must have existed a long and intimate 
familiarity between the gardener and the peach-tree, 
before it yielded to his whims, and gave its fruit so 
strange a shape to gratify them. Are there no 
healthy and enduring varieties of the peach to be 
procured from China out of which other healthy va- 
rieties may be bred .-* Has the Chinese horticultur- 
ist, in the practice of thousands of years, discovered 



274 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

no method of preventing the disease by which the 
tree with us perishes at the very period when it 
should be most vigorous and productive ? 

The apricot in our country, blooming at an early 
season, suffers by the spring frosts, which cause its 
fruit to drop in the germ, and often render the tree 
barren. In the East, its native country, it is cultiva- 
ted over an immense variety of latitudes. Damascus 
lies among orchards of the apricot, lofty trees like 
those of the forest, with dark stately stems and 
spreading branches ; and I have scarce ever seen a 
more beautiful sight than the banks of the Barada, a 
river of Anti-Lebanon, in its green, narrow valley, 
overhung in the month of March with apricot-trees in 
bloom, vieing in height with the poplars among which 
they stood. Yet, far to the north of Damascus, far 
to the north of the vale of the Barada, groves of this 
tree clothe the cool declivities of Caucasus, and they 
grow on the mountains of northern China, in a cli- 
mate of fierce and sudden vicissitudes of heat and 
cold. Our varieties of the apricot may have been 
procured from too southern a latitude or from a cli- 
mate of very great uniformity. It is hardly possible 
that prolific varieties, suited to the most inconstant 
climate, should not be found somewhere in Asia, to 
the western half of which, the fruit of the apricot in a 



IMPROVEMENT OF NATIVE FRUITS. 2/5 

dried state is, what the prune is to France and Ger- 
many. 

I will leave this point here, which might be fur- 
ther illustrated by numerous examples, particularly 
by the cherry, of which many of the varieties most 
prized in Europe, become worthless under the warm 
and showery skies of our June, by decaying the in- 
stant they ripen ; and by the plum, which in some 
districts, where the tree flourishes with uncommon 
vigor, loses all its fruit by the stings of an insect pest 
called the circulio. I proceed to speak of the vege- 
table productions of other countries, which ' we might 
advantageously introduce into our own. Eastern 
Asia, situated like these Atlantic States, on the east- 
ern coast of a large continent, and possessing, like 
them, a climate subject to great extremes of heat and 
cold, is the region to which we must look for the most 
important contributions of this kind. Whatever, 
among the growths of the vegetable kingdom, will 
bear the hard winter of that region, and, at the same 
time, requires the heat of its summer to ensure its 
perfection, will, of- course, flourish here in the same 
latitudes as there. Japan and Northern China are 
now opened to our commerce, and we may freely 
transfer all that is worth so distant a conveyance to 
our fields and gardens. The Dutch and English 



2/6 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

florists have already adopted many of their flowering 
plants : the camellia of Southern Japan, is one of the 
fairest ornaments of our conservatories ; Japan lilies 
and China roses bloom in our gardens ; the Japan 
quince and Chinese pear embellish our shrubberies ; 
but in fruits and esculents, as yet, we owe them little. 
Although the Chinese make no wine, they have 
excellent table grapes ; the French missionary Hue 
commends them highly ; and a gentleman, long a 
resident in Southern China, once informed me that 
the finest come to Canton from about the 37th degree 
of north latitude. It is a variety of the common 
grape of the Old World : but whatever may be its 
quality, it is of course a variety certain to flourish here 
as well as in the kindred climate of China, The Eu- 
ropean vine — at least the varieties of it which are 
cultivated in Europe — cannot, it seems to be agreed 
on all hands, be naturalized here so as to escape the 
mildew on its fruit, when it grows in the open air. We 
should immediately make the experiment of adopting 
the Chinese varieties in their place. The lamps by 
which the dwellings and streets of China are lighted 
at night, are fed with oil pressed from the fruit of a 
tree which grows all over the country. The chasers 
of the whale on our coast every year pursue their 
game into more remote seas, and every year bring 



IMPROVEMENT OF NATIVE FRUITS. 2/7 

back diminished cargoes of oil. Ere long it may be 
well to bethink ourselves of resorting to the vegetable 
oils used by the Chinese, and of procuring a supply 
by the same means. The evergreens of China, if in- 
troduced here, where the stock of hardy evergreens is ' 
small, would form a most desirable ornament of the 
grounds about our dwellings. Among these is a kind 
of palm, of the genus chamcerops, which endures an 
intense degree of cold, and makes a singular appear- 
ance, bearing on its tropical looking leaves in the 
winter season loads of snow. Here are large oppor- 
tunities for inquiry and experiment, and one office of 
societies like yours in this country will, I am con- 
vinced, at no distant day, be to send a horticultural 
mission to eastern Asia. 

The last point on which I propose to touch would 
open, if I chose to enter it, a vast field of speculation 
and conjecture. If we had only our native fruits to 
cultivate ; if we had but the crab-apple of our forests, 
and the wild plum of our thickets from which to form 
our orchards ; if we had only the aboriginal flowers 
of our woods and fields to domesticate in our gar- 
dens, what haste should we make to mellow the harsh 
juices of the fruits and to heighten and vary the 
beauty of the flowers ! We neglect what is native, 
because we have the vegetable productions of the 



2/8 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

Old World already improved to our hands. Yet 
many of these were as little promising, when the gar- 
dener first tried his art upon them, as the crude 
fruits of our woodlands. The pear-tree in the woods 
of Poland and on the dry elevated plains of Russia, 
where it grows wild, is horrid, with thorns, and pro- 
duces a small fruit of the austerest and most un- 
grateful flavor. Under culture, it lays aside its 
thorns, and becomes the parent of an infinitely va- 
ried family of fruits, filled with ambrosial juices for 
the refreshment of almost every month in the year. 
I have somewhere read the assertion that the grape 
of Europe and the East was, even in its original state, 
a fruit of excellent quality. I think this is a mistake. 
I believe that I have twice seen that grape lapsed to 
its primitive condition. Some years since, while 
travelling from Rome to Naples, on the Via Labiana, 
the diligence broke down ; the passengers were de- 
tained several hours while it was repairing, and I 
took the opportunity to explore the surrounding 
country. I climbed a hill where, on one side of the 
way, was a vineyard, with grapes white and purple, 
just ripe, and almost bursting with their saccharine 
juices ; while on the other side was an unfenced pas- 
ture ground, half overgrown with bushes, on which 
the wild vines clambered, apparently self-sown. I 



IMPROVEMENT OF NATIVE FRUITS. 279 

tried the grapes on both sides of the way ; the culti- 
vated sorts were of the high flavor and intense 
sweetness common to the grapes of Italy ; the . fruit 
of the wild vine was small, of the size of our pigeon 
grape, with large seeds, a thick skin and meagre 
juices. In the same journey I had an opportunity to 
make a similar comparison in another place, and be- 
came convinced that the European grape, in its wild 
or primitive state, is not remarkable for any particu- 
lar excellence. 

In the improvement of our own native fruits we 
have done something ; the Virginia strawberry is the 
parent of a numerous family called the Scarlets ; the 
blackberry has given birth to the Lawton variety ; 
the grape of our woods is the parent of the Isabella 
and the Catawba ; and our wild gooseberry has been 
improved into the Houghton. Beyond this I think 
we have hardly gone. Of our flowers, we can, I be- 
lieve, only boast to have domesticated and made 
double the Michigan rose. There is yet an ample 
field for experiment, with every hope of success. The 
American grape naturally runs into varieties of differ- 
ent sizes, colors, degrees of sweetness, and seasons of 
maturity. The richness of our woods, in regard to 
these varieties, are yet far from being exhausted. I 
remember, when a youth, while wandering in the 



28o ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

woodlands of the eastern part of Massachusetts, 
where the wild vines trailed from tree to tree, I found 
a grape of very peculiar characteristics — of an amber 
color, an oval shape, a thin, slightly astringent skin 
like that of the European grape, and flesh of a brittle 
firmness, somewhat hke that of the Frontignan. I 
am satisfied that varieties may yet be obtained from 
the American grape of an excellence of which we 
have now hardly any idea. The American plum ex- 
ists in a great number of varieties of different size, 
color and flavor ; yet nothing has been done to im- 
prove it, by seedlings carefully produced and select- 
ed. I see nothing to prevent it from passing, under 
skilful treatment, into as many pleasant varieties as 
the domestic plum, for vv^hich, as naturalists tell us, 
we are indebted to Syria. At this season the paw- 
paw, sometimes called the custard-apple, a name ex- 
pressive of its qualities, is ripening under its dark 
green leaves in the thickets of the West. It is a 
fruit which, like the fresh fig, is pronounced by many 
whose palates are unaccustomed to it, to be insipid ; 
but like the fig, it is mucilaginous and nutritive. 
Transplanted to our gardens, and made prolific, — 
which may perhaps be a difficult, but, I suppose, is 
not an impossible task — it would, I doubt not, become 
a popular and very desirable fruit. It is wonderful 



IMPROVEMENT OF NATIVE FRUITS. 28 1 

with what facility — what certainty, I had almost said 
— Nature complies with the wishes of the assiduous 
cultivator ; and how, after persevering solicitation, she 
supplies the quality of which he is in search. I have 
now finished what I intended, very briefly, to say on a 
very important subject, which deserves to be treated 
both more at large and more intelligently than I am 
able to do it. 

The earliest occupation of man, we are told, — 
his task in a state of innocence, — was to tend and 
dress the garden in which his Maker placed him. I 
cannot say that as men addict themselves to the 
same pursuit, they are raised nearer to the state of 
innocence ; but this I will say, that few pursuits so 
agreeably interest without ever disturbing the mind, 
and that he who gives himself to it sets up one bar- 
rier the more against evil thoughts and unhallowed 
wishes. The love of plants is a natural and whole- 
some instinct. Through that, perhaps, quite as much 
as through any other tendency of our natures, the 
sense of beauty, the grateful perception of harmony 
of color and of grace and fair proportion of shape, en- 
ter the mind and wean it from grosser and more sen- 
sual tastes. The Quakers, who hesitate to cultivate 
some of the fine arts, indulge their love of beauty 
without scruple or restraint in rearing flowers and 



282 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

embellishing their grounds. I never read descrip- 
tion of natural scenery, nor expressions of delight at 
the beauty of vegetable products more enthusiastic 
than those in the travels of old Bartram, the Quaker 
naturalist, recording his wanderings in Florida. 
The garden of the two Bartrams, father and son, 
near Philadelphia, filled with the plants and trees 
gathered on their journeys, still remains the pride and 
ornament of the city. 

You, my friends, who are the members of the Hor- 
ticultural Society, are engaged in a good work, the 
work of cherishing the relations of acquaintanceship 
and affection, too apt to be overlooked and forgotten 
in a city life, with the vegetable world in the 
midst of which God placed us, and on which he 
made us so essentially dependent. So far as you 
occupy your minds with these natural and simple 
tastes, you keep yourselves unperverted by the 
world, and preserve in sight a reminiscence of the 
fair original garden. 



MUSIC IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 



7 f r 



MUSIC IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 

AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE CLOSE OF A SERIES OF LEC- 
TURES BY RICHARD STORRS WILLIS, DECEMBER 29, 1856. 

I have been asked to say a word or two on the 
general subject of the series of lectures to which you 
have listened. If I shall suggest anything that will 
enforce the views which the lecturer has so ably 
taken, I shall esteem myself fortunate. 

Many persons entertain doubts in regard to the 
expediency of making music a branch of the educa- 
tion acquired in our common schools. Until these 
doubts are removed, we shall miss what is most de- 
sirable — the hearty and efficient cooperation of those 
who entertain them. There are a few considerations 
in favor of the afBrmative side of this question which, 
I think, can hardly be too strongly urged. 

It is admitted, by those who have thought much 
on the subject, that the people of our country allow 
themselves too little relaxation from business and its 
cares. If this be so — and for my part I think there 
is no doubt of it — they will find in the cultivation of 
music a recreation of the most innocent and unobjec- 



286 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

tionable kind. The effect of music is to soothe, to 
tranquillize ; a series of sweet sounds, skilfully modu- 
lated, occupies the attention agreeably and without 
fatigue ; it refreshes us like rest. I recollect a re- 
markable passage in Milton's Paradise Lost, expres- 
sive of his idea of the power of music. He describes 
a group of fallen angels endeavoring to divert their 
thoughts from the misery to which they had reduced 
themselves, and says : 

" — the harmony 
Suspended hell ; and took with ravishment 
The audience." 

Milton was not only the greatest epic poet who 
has lived since Homer, but he was a schoolmaster, 
and devised for his pupils a plan of education in 
which the fatigues of study were wisely interspersed 
by intervals of music. 

Many persons relax from labor and care by the 
use of narcotics. Music is a better resource. A 
tune is certainly better than a cigar. Others, for 
want of some more attractive employment, addict 
themselves to the pleasures of the table. Music is 
certainly better than conviviality. In this respect the 
cultivation of music comes in aid of health. 

In another respect vocal music — which is likely 
to be the kind of music principally taught in the 



MUSIC IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 287 

Common Schools — promotes the health of the body. 
If you observe the physical conformation of those 
who are accustomed to sing in public, you will per- 
ceive that they are remarkable for a full development 
of the chest. This is in part, no doubt, the gift of 
nature, for breadth and depth of the chest give power 
and fulness of voice ; but in part it is the effect of 
practice, and the chest is opened and expanded by 
the exercise of singing. I have no question, for my 
part, that complaints of the lungs would be less fre- 
quent than now if vocal music were universally culti- 
vated. It is an undisputed truth that those organs 
of the body which are most habitually exercised are 
preserved in the soundest and healthiest state. 

Not only health, but morals, are promoted by the 
cultivation of music. It is not only a safeguard 
against sickly and unwholesome habits, as I have 
shown, but against immoral ones also. If we provide 
innocent amusements, we lessen the temptation to 
seek out vicious indulgences. Refined pleasures, like 
music, stand in the way of grosser tastes. If we fill 
up our leisure innocently, we crowd out vices, almost 
by mechanical pressure ; we leave no room for 
them. 

It is no trivial accomplishment to speak our lan- 
guage in pleasing tones and with a clear articulation. 



288 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

our countrymen are accused of speaking English in a 
slip-shod manner, and a nasal and rather shrill tone 
of voice. If vocal music be properly taught, the pu- 
pil is made to avoid these faults, and to combine the 
smoothest and most agreeable sounds with the most 
absolutely distinct articulation of the words. On this 
point, the gentleman to whom we have just listened, 
has dwelt with a force to which I can add nothing. 
Yet I may be allowed to say that they who have 
been trained to avoid disagreeable tones and an im- 
perfect and slovenly articulation in singing, will see 
their deformity in reading and conversation, and will 
be very apt to avoid them there also. 

In making music a branch of common education, 
we give a new attraction to our common schools. 
Music is not merely a study, it is an entertainment ; 
wheiever there is music there is a throng of listeners. 
We complain that our common schools are not at- 
tended as they ought to be. What is to be done ^ 
Shall we compel the attendance of children ? Rather 
let us, if we can, so order things, that children shall 
attend voluntarily — shall be eager to crowd to the 
schools ; and for this purpose nothing can be more 
effectual, it seems to me, than the art to which the 
ancients ascribed such power that, according to the 
fables of their poets, it drew the very stones of the 



MUSIC IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 289 

earth from their beds and piled them in a wall 
around the city of Thebes. 

It should be considered, moreover, that music in 
schools is useful as an incentive to study. After a 
weary hour of poring over books, with perhaps some 
discouragement on the part of the learner, if not des- 
pair at the hardness of his task, a song puts him in 
a more cheerful and hopeful mood ; the play of the 
lungs freshens the circulation of the blood, and he 
sits down again to his task in better spirits and with 
an invigorated mind. Almost all occupations are 
cheered and lightened by music. I remember once 
being in a tobacco manufactory in Virginia where 
the work was performed by slaves who enlivened 
their tasks with outbursts of psalmody. " We encour- 
age their singing," said one of the proprietors ; " they 
work the better for it." Sailors pull more vigorously 
at the rope for their ' Yo heave ho ! ' which is a 
kind of song. I have heard the vine-dressers in Tus- 
cany, on the hill-sides, responding to ea'ch other in 
songs, with which the whole region resounded, and 
which turned their hard day's work into a pastime. 

If music be so important an art, it is important 

that it should be well taught. It is a sensible maxim 

that whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing 

well. Suitable teachers of music for the common 

13 



290 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

schools, as we have heard from our friend, are ex- 
ceedingly difficult to be found ; persons who along 
with a competent knowledge, a willingness, to teach 
the mere rudiments of the art, and an acquaintance 
with the best methods of imparting them, possess a 
pure and unexceptionable taste. The only certain 
method of procuring a supply of such teachers cer- 
tainly seems to be the one pointed out by the lec- 
turer — that of training them for instruction at the 
normal schools. Such is now the rage for making ac- 
complished pianists of all our young ladies, that a 
class of teachers has been raised up whose merit I 
do not doubt, but who are altogether too ambitious 
for the common schools. We need a class for an 
humble, but more useful ministration — teachers of 
home music, the importance of which has been so 
well set forth. It costs no more to be taught music 
well than to be taught ill, but the difference to the 
pupil is everything. 

I speak as one unlearned in the science of music, 
and am glad that I have the good fortune to agree in 
so many points with one so thoroughly versed in its 
principles and so conversant with its practical details 
as our lecturer. There is a numerous class — the ma- 
jority of my countrymen — who, in this respect, are 
much like myself They have a perception of the 



MUSIC IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 291 

beauty of sweet sounds artfully modulated, and of 
time in music; they perceive the disagreeableness 
of a discord, but they do not understand complicated 
harmonies ; they do not perceive niceties to which 
better instructed or more sensitive organs are acutely 
alive ; they take no delight in difficulties overcome, 
for of these difficulties they have a very imperfect 
conception, and they are somewhat bewildered in 
listening to compositions which justly pass for prodi- 
gies of art. They have a partiality for the human 
voice, as the most expressive instrument of music 
which they are acquainted with, and they desire that 
the sentiment of the air to which they listen should 
be interpreted to their minds by intelligible words. 
But that it is not the words alone which interest 
them, is proved by the fact that they listen with pleas- 
ure to common-place words' when they are united to 
music. For my part, I find that the music transfigures 
the words, invests them with a sort of supernatural 
splendor, making them call up deeper emotions and 
conveying more vivid images. The class of whom I 
am speaking require for their enjoyment of music a 
certain simplicity — certain aids which bring it down 
to their level. And yet, on that level, not only taste, 
but art and genius, if we are to judge music by the 
same rules which we apply to the other fine arts, may 



292 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

find an ample field for their exercise. Some of the 
finest productions of literature are those which are 
written with the greatest simplicity, and address 
themselves to the greatest number of minds. I sup- 
pose, therefore, that I may conclude what I have to 
say with an acknowledgment to the lecturer in behalf 
of that large class to which I belong, for having so 
well stated our wants, and so clearly pointed out, in 
his admirable vindication of Home Music, the means 
of providing for them. 



SCHILLER 



SCHILLER. 

AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE COOPER INSTITUTE ON THE 
OCCASION OF THE SCHILLER FESTIVAL, NOVEMBER ii, 1859. 

I am sensible that, after the eloquent words 
which have been just uttered by the countrymen of 
the great poet whose birth we commemorate, and ut- 
tered in the noble language in which he wrote, I can 
say little that will interest this assembly. My own 
shortcomings, however, will be more than made up 
for by the gentlemen who, I understand, are to 
speak after me, and I therefore engage that I will 
not attempt to hold your attention long. 

It might seem a presumptuous, if not an absurd 
proceeding for an American to speak of the literary 
character of Schiller in the presence of Germans, 
who are familiar with all that he has written to a de- 
gree which cannot be expected of us, and by whom 
the spirit of his writings, to the minutest particular, 
fnust be far more easily, and, we may therefore sup- 
pose, should be more thoroughly, apprehended. Yet 
let me be allowed to say that the name of Schiller, 
more than that of any other poet of his country, 



296 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

and for the very reason that he was a great tragic 
poet, belongs not to the Hterature of his country 
alone, but to the literature of the world. The Ger- 
mans themselves have taught us this truth in relation 
to the tragic poets. In no part of the world is our 
Shakspeare more devoutly studied than in Ger- 
many ; nowhere are his writings made the subject of 
profounder criticism, and the German versions of his 
dramas are absolute marvels of skilful translation. 

We may therefore well say to the countrymen of 
Schiller : " Schiller is yours, but he is ours also. 
It was your country that gave him birth, but the peo- 
ple of all nations have made him their countryman 
by adoption. The influences of his genius have long 
since overflowed the limits within which his mother 
tongue is spoken, and have colored the dramatic lit- 
erature of the whole world. In some shape or other, 
with abatements, doubtless, from their original splen- 
dor and beauty, but still glorious and still powerful 
over the minds of men ; his dramas have become the 
common property of mankind. His personages walk 
our stage, and, in the familiar speech of our firesides, 
utter the sentiments which he puts into their mouths. 
We tremble alternately with fear and hope ; we are 
moved to tears of admiration, we are melted to tears 
of pity ; it is Schiller who touches the master chord 



SCHILLER. 297 

to which our hearts answer. He compels us to a 
painful sympathy with his Robber Chief; he makes 
us parties to the grand conspiracy of Fiesco, and wil- 
ling lieges of Fiesco's gentle consort Leonora ; we 
sorrow with him for the young, magnanimous, gener- 
ous, unfortunate Don Carlos, and grieve scarcely less 
for the guileless and angelic Elizabeth ; he dazzles 
us with the splendid ambition and awes us with the 
majestic fall of Wallenstein ; he forces us to weep 
for Mary Stuart and for the Maid of Orleans ; he 
thrills us with wonder and delight at the glorious and 
successful revolt of William Tell. Suffer us, then, 
to take part in the honors you pay to his memory, to 
shower the violets of spring upon his sepulchre, and 
twine it with the leaves of plants that wither not in 
the frost of winter." 

We of this country, too, must honor Schiller as 
the poet of freedom. He was one of those who 
could agree with Cowper in saying that, if he could 
worship aught visible to the human eye or shaped by 
the human fancy, he would rear an altar to Liberty, 
and bring to it, at the beginning and close of every 
day, his offering of praise. Schiller began to write 
when our country was warring with Great Britain for 
its independence, and his genius attained the matu- 
rity of its strength just as we had made peace with 
13* 



298 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

our powerful adversary and stood upon the earth a 
full-grown nation. It was then that the poet was 
composing his noble drama of Do7i Carlos, in which 
the Marquis of Posa is introduced as laying down to 
the tyrant, Philip of Spain, the great law of freedom. 
In the drama of the Robbers, written in Schiller's 
youth, we are sensible of a fiery, vehement, destruc- 
tive impatience with society, on account of the 
abuses which it permits ; an enthusiasm of reform, 
almost without plan or object ; but in his works com- 
posed afterwards we find the true philosophy of re- 
form calmly and clearly stated. The Marquis of 
Posa, in an interview with Philip, tells him, at the 
peril of his life, truths which he never heard before ; 
exhorts him to lay the foundations of his power in 
the happiness and affections of his people, by observ- 
ing the democratic precept, that no tie should fetter 
the citizen save respect for the rights of his brethren, 
as perfect and as sacred as his own, and prophesies the 
approaching advent of freedom, which unfortunately 
we are looking for still — that universal spring which 
should yet make young the nations of the earth. 

Yet was Schiller no mad innovator. He saw that 
society required to be pruned, but did not desire that 
it should be uprooted — he would have it reformed, 
not laid waste. What was ancient and characteristic 



^ SCHILLER. 299 

in its usages and ordinances, and therefore endeared 
to many, he would, where it was possible, improve 
and adapt to the present wants of mankind. I re- 
member a passage in which his respect for those de- 
vices of form and usage by which the men of a past 
age sought to curb and restrain the arbitrary power 
of their rulers, is beautifully illustrated. I quote 
it from the magnificent translation of Wairenstein 
made by Coleridge. Let me say here that I know 
of no English translation of a poem of any length 
which, a few passages excepted, so perfectly repro- 
duces the original as this, and that if the same hand 
had given us in our language the other dramas of 
this author, we should have had an English Schiller 
worthy to be placed by the side of the German. 
" My son," says Octavio Piccolomini, addressing the 
youthful warrior Max — 

" My son, of those old narrow ordinances 
Let us not hold too lightly. They are weights 
Of priceless value, which oppressed mankind 
Tied to the volatile will of the oppressor. 
For always formidable was the league 
And partnership of free power with free will." 

And then, remarking that what slays and destroys 
goes directly to its mark, like the thunderbolt and the 
cannon-ball, shattering everything that lies in their 
way, he claims a beneficent circuitousness for those 



300 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

ancient ordinances which make so much of the ma- 
chinery of society. 

" My son, the road the human being travels, 
That on which Blessing comes and goes, doth follow 
The river's path, the valley's playful windings. 
Curves round the corn-field and the hill of vines, 
Honoring the holy bounds of property, 
And thus, secure, though late, leads to its end." 

Schiller perceived the great truth that old laws, if 
not watched, slide readily into abuses, and knew that 
constant revision and renovation are the necessary 
conditions of free political society ; but he would 
have the revision made without forgetting that the 
men of the present day are of the same blood with 
those who lived before them. He would have the 
new garments fitted to the figure that must wear 
them, such as nature and circumstances have made 
it, even to its disproportions. He would have the old 
pass into the new by gradations which should avoid 
violence, and its concomitants, confusion and misery. 

The last great dramatic work of Schiller — and 
whether it be not the grandest production of his 
genius I leave to others to judge — is founded on the 
most remarkable and beneficent political revolution 
which, previous to our own, the world had seen — an 
event the glory of which belongs solely to the Teu- 
tonic race — 'that ancient vindication of the great right 



SCHILLER. 301 

of nationality and independent government, the re- 
volt of Switzerland against the domination of Austria, 
which gave birth to a republic now venerable with 
the antiquity of five hundred years. He took a silent 
page from history, and, animating the personages of 
whom it speaks with the fiery life of his own spirit, 
and endowing them with his own superhuman elo- 
quence, he formed it into a living protest against for- 
eign dominion which yet rings throughout the world. 
Wherever there are generous hearts, wherever there 
are men who hold in reverence the rights of their fel- 
low-men, wherever the love of country and the love 
of mankind coexist, Schiller's drama of William Tell 
stirs the blood like the sound of a trumpet. 

It is not my purpose to dwell on the eminent lit- 
erary qualities which make so large a part of the 
greatness of Schiller, and which have been more ably 
set forth by others than they can be by me. It is not 
for me to analyze his excellences as a dramatic poet ; 
I will not speak of his beautiful and flowing lyrics, 
the despair of translators ; I will say nothing of his 
noble histories, written, like his dramas, for all man- 
kind — for it was his maxim that he who wrote for one 
nation only proposed to himself a poor and narrow 
aim. These topics would require more time than 
you could give me, and I should shrink with dismay 



302 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

from a task of such extent and magnitude. Let me 
close with observing that there is yet one other respect 
in which, as a member of the great world of letters, 
Schiller is entitled to the veneration of all mankind. 
He was an earnest seeker after truth ; a man 
whose moral nature revolted at every form of deceit ; 
a noble example of what his countrymen mean when 
they claim the virtue of sincerity for the German 
race. He held with Akenside that 

" Truth and Good are one, 



And Beauty dwells in them ; " 

that on the ascertainment and diffusion of truth the 
welfare of mankind largely depends, and that only 
mischief and misery can spring from delusions and 
prejudices, however enshrined in the respect of the 
world and made venerable by the lapse of years. 
The office of him who labored in the field of letters, 
he thought, was to make mankind better and happier, 
by illustrating and enforcing the relations and duties 
of justice, beneficence and brotherhood by which men 
are bound to each other ; and he never forgot this in 
anything which he wrote. Immortal honor to him 
whose vast powers were employed to so worthy a 
purpose, and may the next hundredth anniversary of 
his birth be celebrated with even a warmer enthusi- 
asm than this ! 



A BIRTHDAY ADDRESS 



A BIRTHDAY ADDRESS. 

DELIVERED IN THE ROOMS OF THE CENTURY CLUB, IN REPLY 
TO ONE OF THE HON. GEORGE BANCROFT, ON THE OCCA- 
SION OF MR. BRYANT'S SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY, NOVEM- 
BER 3, 1864. 

I thank you Mr. President, for the kind words you 
have uttered, and I thank this good-natured company 
for having listened to them w^ith so many tokens of 
assent and approbation. I must suppose, however, 
that most of this approbation was bestowed upon the 
orator rather than upon his subject. He who has 
brought to the writing of our national history a genius 
equal to the vastness of the subject, has -of course 
more than talent enough for humbler tastes. I won- 
der not, therefore, that he should be applauded this 
evening for the skill he has shown in embellishing a 
barren topic. 

I am congratulated on having completed my 
seventieth year. Is there nothing ambiguous, Mr. 
President, in such a compliment .-• To be congratula- 
ted on one's senility ! To be congratulated on having 
reached that stage of life when the bodily and mental 



306 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

powers pass into decline and decay ! " Lear " is made 
by Shakspeare to say : 

" Age is unnecessary." 

And a later poet, Dr. Johnson, expressed the same 
idea in one of his sonorous lines : 

" Superfluous lags the veteran on the stage." 

You have not forgotten, Mr. President, the old 
Greek saying : 

" Whom the gods love die young." — 

nor the passage in Shakspeare : 

— " Oh, sir, the good die first, 
And they, whose hearts are dry as summer dust, 
Burn to the socket." 

Much has been said of the wisdom of Old Age. 
Old Age ;s wise, I grant, for itself, but not wise for 
the community. It is wise in declining new enter- 
prises, for it has not the power nor the time to exe- 
cute them ; wise in shrinking from difficulty, for it has 
not the strength to overcome it ; wise in avoiding 
danger, for it lacks the faculty of ready and swift ac- 
tion, by which dangers are parried and converted into 
advantages. But this is not wisdom for mankind at 
large, by whom new enterprises must be undertaken, 
dangers met and difficulties surmounted. What a 



A BIRTHDAY ADDRESS. 307 

world would this be if it were made up of old men ! — 
generation succeeding to generation of hoary an- 
cients who had but half a dozen years or perhaps half 
that time to live ! What new work of good would be 
attempted ! What existing abuse or evil corrected ! 
What strange subjects would such a world afford for 
the pencils of our artists — groups of superannuated 
graybeards basking in the sun through the long days 
of spring, or huddling like sheep in warm corners in 
the winter time ; houses with the timbers dropping 
apart ; cities in ruins ; roads unwrought and impassa- 
ble ; weedy gardens and fields with the surface feebly 
scratched to put in a scanty harvest ; feeble old men 
climbing into crazy wagons, perhaps to be run away 
with, or mounting horses, if they mounted them at all, 
in terror of being hurled from their backs like a stone 
from a sling. Well it is that in this world of ours the 
old men are but a very small minority. 

Ah, Mr. President, if we could but stop this rush- 
ing tide of time that bears us so swiftly onward and 
make it flow towards its source ; if we could cause 
the shadow to turn back on the dial-plate ! I see be- 
fore me many excellent friends of mine worthy to live 
a thousand years, on whose countenances years have 
set their seal, marking them with the lines of thought 
and care and causing their temples to glisten with 



308 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

the frosts of life's autumn. If to any one of these 
could be restored his glorious prime, his golden 
youth, with its hyacinthine locks, its smooth unwrin- 
kled brow, its fresh and rounded cheek, its pearly 
and perfect teeth, its lustrous eyes, its light and agile 
step, its frame full of energy, its exulting spirits, its 
high hopes, its generous impulses — and add all these 
to the experience and fixed principles of mature age, 
I am sure, Mr. President, that I should start at once 
to my- feet and propose that in commemoration of 
such a marvel and by way of congratulating our friend 
who was its subject, we should hold such a festivity 
as the Century has never seen nor will ever see again. 
Eloquence should bring its highest tribute, and Art 
its fairest decorations to grace the festival ; the most 
skilful musicians should be here with all manner 
of instruments of music, ancient and modern ; we 
would have sackbut and trumpet and shawm, and 
damsels with dulcimers, and a modern band three 
times as large as the one that now plays on that bal- 
cony. But why dwell on such a vain dream, since it 
is only by passing through the dark valley of the 
shadow of death that man can reach his second 
youth. 

I have read, in descriptions of the old world, of 
the families of Princes and Barons, coming out of 



A BIRTHDAY ADDRESS. 309 

their castles to be present at some rustic festivity, 
such as a wedding of one of their peasantry. I am 
reminded of this custom by the presence of many 
literary persons of eminence in these rooms, and I 
thank them for this act of benevolence. Yet I miss 
among them several whom I wished rather than 
ventured to hope that I should meet on this occasion. 
I miss my old friend Dana, who gave so grandly the 
story of the Buccaneer in his solemn verses. I miss 
Pierpont, venerable in years, yet vigorous in mind 
and body, and with an undimmed fancy ; and him 
whose pages are wet with the tears of maidens who 
read the story of Evangeline ; and the author of Fan- 
ny and the Croakers, no less renowned for the fiery 
spirit which animates his Marco Bozzaris ; and him 
to whose wit we owe the Biglow Papers, who has 
made a lowly flower of the wayside as classical as 
the rose of Anacreon ; and the Quaker poet whose 
verses, "Quaker as he is, stir the blood like the voice 
of a trumpet calling to battle ; and the poetess of 
Hartford, whose beautiful lyrics are in a million 
hands ; and others whose names, were they to occur 
to me here as in my study, I might accompany with 
the mention of some characteristic merit. But here is 
he whose aerial verse has raised the little insect of 
our fields, making its murmuring journey from flower 



3IO ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

to flower, the humble-bee, to a dignity equal to that 
of Pindar's eagle : here is the Autocrat of the Break- 
fast Table — author of that most spirited of naval 
lyrics, beginning with the line : 

" Aye, tear her tattered ensign down ! " 

Here, too, is the poet who told in pathetic verse the 
story of Jeptha's daughter ; and here are others, wor- 
thy compeers of those I have mentioned, yet greatly 
my juniors, in the brightness of whose rising fame I 
am like one who has carried a lantern in the night, 
and who perceives that its beams are no longer visi^ 
ble in the glory which the morning pours around 
him. To them and to all the members of the Centu- 
ry, allow me, Mr, President, to offer the wish that they 
may live longer than I have done in health of body 
and mind and in the same contentment and serenity 
of spirit which has fallen to my lot. I must not over- 
look the ladies who have deigned to honor these 
rooms with their presence. If I knew where, amid 
myrtle bowers and flowers that never wither, gushed 
from the ground the fountain of perpetual youth so 
long vainly sought by the first Spanish adventurers 
on the North American continent, I would offer to 
the lips of every one of them a beaker of its fresh and 
sparkling waters, and bid them drink unfading bloom. 



A BIRTHDAY ADDRESS. 31I 

But since that is not to be, I will wish what, perhaps, 
is as well, and what sorae would think better, that 
the same kindness of heart which has prompted them 
to come hither to-night, may lend a beauty to every 
action of their future lives. And to the Century 
Club itself — the dear old Century Club — to whose 
members I owe both the honors and the embarrass- 
ments of this occasion — to that association, fortunate 
in having possessed two such presidents as the dis- 
tinguished historian who now occupies the chair, 
and the eminent and accomplished scholar and ad- 
mirable writer who preceded him, I offer the wish 
that it may endure, not only for the term of years sig- 
nified by its name — not for one century only, but for 
ten centuries — so that hereafter, perhaps, its mem- 
bers may discuss the question whether its name 
should not be changed to that of the Club of a Thou- 
sand Years, and that these may be centuries of peace 
and prosperity, from which its members may look 
back to this period of bloody strife, as to a frightful 
dream soon chased away by the beams of a glorious 
morning. 



FREEDOM OF EXCHANGE 



FREEDOM OF EXCHANGE. 

SPEECH AT A DINNER GIVEN TO MR. BRYANT, IN NEW YORK, 
JANUARY 30, 1S68. 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen : 

An honor like this requires from me a particular 
acknowledgment, which yet I hardly know how to 
make in fitting terms. Conferred as it is by men 
whom I so much value and respect, and who possess 
in so high a degree the esteem of their fellow-citi- 
zens, I can not but feel that it would amply reward 
services infinitely greater than I can pretend to have 
rendered to any cause. What I have done in apply- 
ing the principles of human liberty to the exchange 
of property between man and man and between na- 
tion and nation, has been very easy to do. It was 
simply to listen to my own convictions, without any 
attempt to reason them away, and to follow whither- 
soever they might lead me. In this manner 1 have 
been saved a good deal of trouble, some perplexity 
and bewilderment, some waste of ingenuity, if I had 
any to waste, and perhaps no little remorse. 



3l6 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

Another circumstance has" made my task easy. 
I had only to walk in a path smoothed and lighted by 
some of the best thinkers of the age — impartial, un- 
prejudiced men, who had no object in vie\y but the 
simple discovery of truth. It was not difficult to 
walk in such a path. Grand and noble intellects 
held their torches over it, and I could not well step 
astray with such guidance. Besides, I had only to 
follow in the way which the world is going. The 
tendency of enlightened public opinion in all coun- 
tries is towards the freedom of trade. There is no 
difficulty in swimming with the current. I saw that 
the navigation was safe, and let my boat float with 
the stream, while others laboriously tried to stem it 
or lay moored to the shore wondering which way 
they ought to go. We shall have them all with us 
yet, Mr. Chairman, a merry fleet of all manner of 
craft, bound on the same easy voyage. 

Another circumstance which has made the task of 
Free Trade more easy, is the involuntary admissions 
which the protectionists make of the fallacy of their 
system. A capitalist in New England, owning cot- 
ton or woollen mills, however great his attachment to 
the protective system, has no idea of employing any 
part of his capital in raising wheat in the fields close 
to his mills, that he may save the expense to him and 



FREEDOM OF EXCHANGE. 317 

his work-people of bringing it from the distant West. 
He brings it from a thousand miles away, and sends 
back his fabrics in exchange, at the very moment 
that he is procuring laws to be passed which will pre- 
vent us, the consumers, from buying iron and cloth 
and paper from Europe, that we may, as they say, 
save the expense of freight. When we make a new 
acquisition of territory, they do not object that we 
are to have Free-Trade with the new region. On 
the contrary, they rejoice in a wider market. This 
they did when Texas was taken into the Union. 
They made no opposition to the acquisition of Cali- 
fornia on the ground that all revenue laws which 
shut out the trade of that wide region would now be 
repealed. When we talk of annexing Canada, they 
do not object that we and the Canadians will then be 
no longer independent of each other. 

In this they are in the right ; in this they tacitly 
admit the advantage of Free-Trade. Whatever oth- 
er objection may be made to the acquisition of new 
territory, the enlargement of our borders by the ad- 
dition of new and extensive provinces is a great com- 
mercial and industrial advantage, because it makes 
the exchange of commodities between them and us 
perfectly free. 

Yet there is a certain plausibility in what the pro- 



3l8 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

tectionists say when they talk of home industry and 
a home market — a plausibiUty which misleads many 
worthy and otherwise sensible people — sensible in all 
other respects, and whom as men I admire and hon- 
or. There are clever men among them, who bring 
to their side of the question a great array of facts, 
many of which, however, have no real bearing upon 
its solution. There is a plausibility, too, in the idea 
that the sun makes a daily circuit around the earth, 
and if there were any private interests to be promoted 
by maintaining it, we should have thousands believ- 
ing that the earth stands still while the sun travels 
round it. " See for yourself," they would say. Will 
you not believe the evidence of your own senses .'' 
The sun comes up in the East every day before your 
eyes, stands over your head at noon, and goes down 
in the afternoon in the west. Why, you admit the 
fact when you say the sun rises, the sun sets, the 
sun is up, the sun is down. What a fool was Galileo, 
what nonsense is the system of Copernicus, what 
trash was written by Sir Isaac Newton ! " 

I remember a case in point — an anecdote which 
I once heard in Scotland. A writer to the sig- 
net, that is to say, an attorney, named Moll, who 
knew very little, except what related to the draw- 
ing up of law-papers, once heard a lecture on as- 



FREEDOM OF EXCHANGE. 319 

tronomy, in which some illustrations were given of 
the daily revolution of the earth on its axis. The 
attorney was perplexed and bewildered by this phi- 
losophy, which was so new to him, and one day, 
his thoughts frequently recurring to the subject, he 
looked up from his law-papers, and said : " The 
young mon says the warld turns roond. It's vera ex- 
traordinar'. I've lived in this place sax-and-thretty 
years, and that grass-plot presarves the same relative 
poseetion to the house that it had sax-and-thretty 
years sin' ; and yet the young mon says the warld 
turns roond. It's vera extraordinar'." Here was a 
man who was not to be taken in by this nonsense 
about the earth revolving on its axis ; and if there 
were any real or imaginary pecuniary advantage to be 
gained by denying it, Mr. Moll would have a whole 
army of his way of thinking, many of them far wiser 
and better informed in other respects than he. 

Perhaps, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, you will 
allow me to make use of another familiar illustration. 
You have heard of a man attempting to lift himself 
from the ground by the waistband of his pantaloons. 
Now, if anything were to be gained by it, a very re- 
spectable a priori argument might be made in favor 
of the possibility of the feat. One might say : " You 
can lift two hundred pounds ; your weight is but one 



320 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

hundred and sixty. A power of gravitation equal to 
one hundred and sixty pounds holds you down to the 
earth. You have only to apply a counteracting force 
a little greater than this and you will be lifted into 
the air. Take hold of your waistband, therefore, with 
both hands, and pull vigorously. If you do not lift 
yourself up at the first trial you must pull harder." 
All that might sound very plausible to one who had 
no experience to guide him. 

This country has been persuaded to attempt the 
feat of lifting itself from the ground by the waist- 
band, for nearly half a century past, with occasional 
short relaxations of the efforts prompted by a return 
of common sense. When the first pull was made, 
and was ineffectual, we were told to try another, and 
then another still more vigorous, and another and 
another ; and now what do we see .-' The garment of 
which the waistband forms a part is torn to shreds and 
tatters, presenting what Pope, alluding to a similar 
accident, somewhere calls a " dishonest sight," morti- 
fying to the pride of philosophy. 

It is most true that a man can be raised from the 
ground by the waistband ; but he cannot do the feat 
himself — another must perform the office. The force 
must come from without. One strong man may raise 
another in this way, and be raised by him in turn. 



FREEDOM OF EXCHANGE. 32 1 

In this case there is an interchange of good offices — • 
freedom of trade. No man even with the strength of 
Samson, can go into a room by himself and endeavor 
to perform the feat alone, without coming forth from 
the undertaking in rags, his nether garment full of 
ghastly rents, inviting the entrance of the January 
wind. So no nation can enrich itself by excluding 
foreign commerce ; the more perfect it makes the ex- 
clusion, the more certain it is to impoverish itself. 

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen ; There is a great 
law imposed upon us by the necessities of our condi- 
tion as members of human society, the law of mutual 
succor, the interchange of benefits and advantages, 
the law of God and nature, commanding us to be use- 
ful to each other. It is the law of the household ; it 
is the law of the neighborhood ; it is the law of differ- 
ent provinces included under the same government, 
and well would it be for mankind if it were in an equal 
degree recognized as a law to be sacredly regarded by 
the great community of nations in their intercourse 
with each other. Were that law to be repealed, the 
social state would lose its cohesion and fall in pieces. 
There is not a pathway across the fields, nor a high- 
road, nor a guide-post at a turn of the way, nor a rail- 
way from city to city or from State to State, nor a sail 

upon the ocean, which is not an illustration of this 
14* 



322 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

law. It is proclaimed in the shriek of the locomotive. 
It is murmured in the ripple of waters divided by the 
prow of the steamer. The nation by which it is dis- 
regarded, or which endeavors to obstruct it by artifi- 
cial barriers against the free intercourse of its citizens 
with those of other countries, revolts against the or- 
der of nature and strikes at its own prosperity. 



THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH. 



THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH. 

SPEECH AT A DINNER GIVEN TO SAMUEL BREESE MORSE, 
DECEMBER, 29, 1S68. ' 

I speak, Mr. President, in behalf of the press. 
To the press the electric telegraph is an invention, of 
immense value. Charles Lamb, in one of his pa- 
pers, remarks that a piece of news, which, when it 
left Botany Bay was true to the letter, often becomes 
a lie before it reaches England. It is the advantage 
of the telegraph that it gives you the news before cir- 
cumstances have had time to alter it. The press 
is enabled to lay it fresh before the reader. It 
comes to him like a steak hot from the gridiron, in- 
stead of being cooled and made flavorless by a slow 
journey from a distant kitchen. A battle is fought 
three thousand miles away, and we have the news 
while they are taking the wounded to the hospital. 
A great orator rises in the British Parliament, and 
we read his words almost before the cheers of his 
friends have ceased. An earthquake shakes San 
Francisco, and we have the news before the people 
who have rushed into the street have returned to 



326 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

their houses. I am afraid that the columns of the 
daily newspapers would now seem flat, dull, and stale 
to the readers were it not for the communications of 
the telegraph. 

But while the telegraph does this for the press, 
the press in some sort returns the obligation. Were 
it not for the press, the telegram, being repeated 
from mouth to mouth, would, from the moment of its • 
arrival, begin to lose something of its authenticity. 
Every rumor propagated orally at last becomes false. 
Mr. President, you are familiar with the personifica- 
tion of Rumor by the poets of antiquity — at first of 
dwarfish size, and rapidly enlarging in bulk till her 
feet sweep the earth and her head is among the 
clouds. The press puts Rumor into a straight jack- 
et, swaddles her from head to foot, and so restrains 
her growth. It transcribes the messages of the tele- 
graph in their very words, and thus prevents them 
from being magnified or mutilated into lies. It pro- 
tects the reputation of the telegraph for veracity. 
You know, Mr. President, what a printer's devil is. 
It is the messenger who brings to the printer his 
copy — that is to say, matter which is to be put into 
type. Some petulant, impatient author, I suppose, 
who was negligent in furnishing the required copy, 
must have given him that name ; although he is so 



THE ELECTHIC TELEGRAPH. 327 

useful that he is entitled to be called the printer's 
angel, the original word for angel and messenger be- 
ing the same. Our illustrious guest, Mr. President, 
has taken portions of the great electric mass, which 
in its concentrated form becomes the thunderbolt ; he 
has drawn it into slender threads, and every one of 
these becomes in his hands an obedient messenger — 
a printer's devil, carrying with the speed of a sunbeam 
volumes of copy to the type-setter. 

In the Treatise on Bathos, Pope quotes, as a sam- 
ple of absurdity not to be surpassed, a passage from 
some play, I think one of Nat. Lee's, expressing the 
modest wish of a lover : 

" Ye gods, annihilate both space and time, 
And make two lovers happy. " 

But see what changes a century brings forth. 
What was then an absurdity, what was arrant non- 
sense, is now the statement of a naked fact. Our 
guest has annihilated both space and time in the 
transmission of intelligence. The breadth of the At- 
lantic, with all its waves, is as nothing ; and in send- 
ing a message from Europe to this continent, the 
time, as computed by the clock, is some six hours 
less than nothing. 

There is one view of this great invention of the 



328 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

electric telegraph which impresses me with awe. Be- 
side us at this board, along with the illustrious man 
whom we are met to honor, and whose name will go 
down to the latest generations of civilized man, sits 
the gentleman to whose clear-sighted perseverance 
and to whose energy — an energy which knew no dis- 
couragement, no weariness, no pause — we owe it that 
the telegraph has been laid which connects the Old 
World with the New through the Atlantic Ocean. 
My imagination goes down to the chambers of the 
middle sea, to those vast depths where repose, the 
mystic wire on beds of coral, among forests of tangle, 
or on the bottom of the dim blue gulfs strewn with 
the bones of whales and sharks, skeletons of drowned 
men, and ribs and masts" of foundered barks, laden 
with wedges of gold never to be coined, and pipes of 
the choicest vintages of earth never to be tasted. 
Through these watery solitudes, among the fountains 
of the great deep, the abode of perpetual silence, 
never visited by living human presence and beyond 
the sight of human eye, there are gliding to and fro, 
by night and by day, in light and in darkness, in calm 
and in tempest, currents of human thought borne by 
the electric pulse which obeys the bidding of man. 
That slender wire thrills with the hopes and fears of 



THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH. 329 

nations ; it vibrates to every emotion that can be 
awakened by any event affecting the welfare of the 
human race. A volume of contemporary history 
passes every hour of the day from one continent to 
the other. An operator on the continent of Europe 
gently touches the keys of an instrument in his quiet 
room, a message is shot with the swiftness of light 
through the abysses of the sea, and before his hand 
is lifted from the machine the story of revolts and 
revolutions, of monarchs dethroned and new dy- 
nasties set up in their place, of battles and con- 
quests and treaties of peace, of great statesmen 
fallen in death, lights of the world gone out and new 
luminaries glimmering on the horizon, is written 
down in another quiet room on the other side of the 
globe. 

Mr. President, I see in the circumstances which 1 
have enumerated a new proof of the superiority of 
mind to matter, of the independent existence of that 
part of our nature which we call the. spirit, when it 
can thus subdue, enslave, and educate the subtlest, 
the most active, and, in certain of its manifestations 
the most intractable and terrible of the elements, 
making it in our hands the vehicle of thought — and 
compelling it to speak every, language of the civil- 



330 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

ized world. I infer the capacity of the spirit for 
a separate state of being, its indestructible essence 
and its noble destiny, and I thank the great dis- 
coverer whom we have assembled to honor for this 
confirmation of my faith. 



THE METROPOLITAN ART MUSEUM. 



THE METROPOLITAN ART MUSEUM. 

ADDRESS DELIVERED AT A MEETING IN THE UNION CLUB 
HOUSE, NOVEMBER 23, 1869. 

We are assembled, my friends, to consider the 
subject of founding in this city a Museum of Art, a re- 
pository of the productions of artists of every class, 
which shall be in some measure worthy of this great 
metropolis and of the wide empire of which New 
York is the commercial centre. I understand that 
no rivalry with any other project is contemplated, no 
competition, save with similar institutions in other 
countries, and then only such modest competition as 
a museum in its infancy may aspire to hold with 
those which v/ere founded centuries ago, and are en- 
riched with the additions made by the munificence of 
successive generations. No precise method of reach- 
ing this result has been determined on, but the object 
of the present meeting is to awaken the public, so far 
as our proceedings can influence the general mind, to 
the importance of taking early and effectual measures 
for founding such a museum as I have described. 

Our city is the third great city of the civilized. 



334 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

world. Our republic has already taken its place 
among the great powers of the earth ; it is great in 
extent, great in population, great in the activity and 
enterprise of her people. It is the richest nation in 
the world, if paying off an enormous national debt 
with a rapidity unexampled in history be any proof of 
riches ; the richest in the world, if contented submis- 
sion to heavy taxation be a sign of wealth ; the rich- 
est in the world, if quietly to allow itself to be an- 
nually plundered of immense sums by men who seek 
public stations for their individual profit be a token 
of public prosperity. My friends, if a tenth part of 
what is every year stolen from us in this way, in the 
city where we live, under pretence of the public ser- 
vice, and poured profusely into the coffers of political 
rogues, were expended on a Museum of Art, we 
might have, deposited in spacious and stately build- 
ings, collections formed of works left by the world's 
greatest artists, which would be the pride of our 
country. We might have an annual revenue which 
would bring to the Museum every stray statue and 
picture of merit, for which there should be no ready 
sale to individuals, every smaller collection in the 
country which its owner could no longer conveniently 
keep, every noble work by the artists of former ages, 
which by any casualty, after long remaining on the 



THE METROPOLITAN ART MUSEUM. 335 

walls of some ancient building, should be again 
thrown upon the world. 

But what have we done — numerous as our peo- 
ple are, and so rich as to be contentedly cheated and 
plundered, what have we done towards founding such 
a repository ? We have hardly made a step towards 
it. Yet, beyond the sea there is the little kingdom 
of Saxony, with an area even less than that of Mas- 
sachusetts, and a population but little larger, possess- 
ing a Museum of the Fine Arts, marvellously rich, 
which no man who visits the continent of Europe is 
willing to own that he has not seen. There is Spain, 
a third-rate power of Europe and poor besides, with a 
Museum of Fine Arts at her capital, the opulence 
and extent of which absolutely bewilder the visitor. 
I will not speak of France or of England, conquering 
nations, which have gathered their treasures of art in 
part from regions overrun by their armies ; nor yet 
of Italy, the fortunate inheritor of so many glorious 
productions of her own artists. But there are Hol- 
land and Belgium, kingdoms almost too small to be 
heeded by the greater powers of Europe in the con- 
sultations which decide the destinies of nations, and 
these little kingdoms have their public collections of 
art, the resort of admiring visitors from all parts of 
the civilized world. 



336 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

But in our country, when the owner of a private 
gallery of art desires to leave his treasures where 
they can be seen by the public, he looks in vain for 
any institution to which he can send them. A public- 
spirited citizen desires to employ a favorite artist 
upon some great historical picture ; there are no walls 
on which it can hang in public sight. A large collec- 
tion of works of art, made at great cost, and with great 
pains, gathered perhaps during a lifetime, is for sale 
in Europe. We may find here men willing to contrib- 
ute to purchase it, but if it should be brought to our 
country there is no edifice here to give it hospitality. 

In 1857, during a visit to Spain, I found in Mad- 
rid a rich private collection of pictures, made by 
Medraza, an aged painter, during a long life, and at a 
period when frequent social and political changes in 
that country dismantled many palaces of the old no- 
bility of the works of art which adorned them. In 
that collection were many pictures by the illustrious 
elder artists of Italy, Spain and Holland. The whole 
might have been bought for half its value, but if it had 
been brought over to our country we had no gallery 
to hold it. The same year I stood before the famous 
Campana collection of marbles, at Rome, which was 
then waiting for a purchaser — a noble collection, 
busts and statues of the ancient philosophers, orators 



THE METROPOLITAN ART MUSEUM, 337 

and poets, the majestic forms of Roman senators, the 
deities of ancient mythology, 

" The fair humanities of old religion," 

but if they had been purchased by our countrymen 
and landed here, we should have been obliged to 
leave them in boxes, just as they were packed. 

Moreover, we require an extensive public gallery 
to contain the greater works of our own painters and 
sculptors. The American soil is prolific of artists. 
The fine arts blossom not only in the populous re- 
gions of our country, but even in its solitary places. 
Go where you will, into whatever museum of art in 
the Old World, you find there artists from the new, 
contemplating or copying the master-pieces of art 
which they contain. Our artists swarm in Italy. 
When I was last at Rome, two years since, I found 
the number of American artists residing there as two 
to one compared with those from the British isles. 
But there are beginners among us who have not the 
means of resorting to distant countries for that in- 
struction in art which is derived from carefully study- 
ing works of acknowledged excellence. For these 
a gallery is needed at home, which shall vie with 
those abroad, if not in the multitude, yet in. the 
merit, of the works it contains. 
15 



338 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

Yet further, it is unfortunate for our artists, our 
painters especially, that they too often find their ge- 
nius cramped by tiie narrow space in which it is con- 
strained to exert itself. It is like a bird in a cage 
which can only take short flights from one perch to 
another and longs to stretch its wings in an ampler 
atmosphere. Producing works for private dwellings, 
our painters are for the most part obliged to confine 
themselves to cabinet pictures, and have little oppor- 
tunity for that larger treatment of important subjects 
which a greater breadth of canvas would allow them, 
and by which the higher and nobler triumphs of their 
art have been achieved. 

There is yet another view of the subject, and a 
most important one. When I consider, my friends, 
the prospect which opens before this great mart of 
the western world, I am moved by feelings which I 
feel it somewhat difficult clearly to define. The 
growth of our city is already wonderfully rapid ; it is 
every day spreading itself into the surrounding re- 
giod, and overwhelming it like an inundation. Now 
that our great railway has been laid from the Atlan- 
tic to the Pacific, Eastern Asia and Western Europe 
will shake hands over our republic. New York will be 
the mart from which Europe will receive a large pro- 
portion of the products of China, and will become not 



THE METROPOLITAN ART MUSEUM. 339 

only a centre of commerce for the New World, but 
for that region which is to Europe the most remote 
part of the Old. A new impulse will be given to the 
growth of our city, which I cannot contemplate with- 
out an emotion akin to dismay. Men will flock in 
greater numbers than ever before to plant themselves 
on a spot so favorable to the exchange of commodi- 
ties between distant regions ; and here will be an ag- 
gregation of human life, a concentration of all that 
ennobles and all that degrades humanity, on a scale 
which the imagination cannot venture to measure. 
To great cities resort not only all that is eminent in 
talent, all that is splendid in genius, and all that is 
active in philanthropy ; but also all that is most dex- 
terous in villany, and all that is most foul in guilt. It 
is in the labyrinths of such mighty and crowded pop- 
ulations that crime finds its safest lurking-places : it is 
there that vice spreads its most seductive and fatal 
snares, and sin is pampered and festers and spreads 
its contagion in the greatest security. 

My friends, it is important that we should en- 
counter the temptations to vice in this great and too 
rapidly growing capital by attractive entertainments 
of an innocent and improving character. We have 
libraries and reading-rooms, and this is well ; we have 
also spacious halls for musical entertainments, and 



340 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

that also is well ; but there are times when we do not 
care to read and are satiate with the listening to 
sweet sounds, and when we more willingly contem- 
plate works of art. It is the business of the true phi- 
lanthropist to find means of gratifying this preference. 
We must be beforehand with vice in our arrangements 
for all that gives grace and cheerfulness to society. 
The influence of works of art is wholesome, enno- 
bling, instructive. Besides the cultivation of the 
sense of beauty — in other words, the perception of 
order, symmetry, proportion of parts, which is of near 
kindred to the moral sentiments — the intelligent con- 
templation of a great gallery of works of art is a les- 
son in history, a lesson in biography, a lesson in the 
antiquities of different countries. Half our knowl- 
edge of the customs and modes of life among the an- 
cient Greeks and Romans is derived from the re- 
mains of ancient art. 

Let it be remembered to the honor of art that if 
it has ever been perverted to the purposes of vice, it 
has only been at the bidding of some corrupt court 
or at the desire of some opulent and powerful volup- 
tuary whose word was law. When intended for the 
general eye no such stain rests on the works of art. 
Let me close with an anecdote of the influence of a 
well-known work. I was once speaking to the poet 



THE METROPOLITAN ART MUSEUM. 341 

Rogers in commendation of the painting of Ary 
Scheffer, entitled Christ the Consoler. " I have an 
engraving of it," he answered, " hanging at my bed- 
side, where it meets my eye every morning." The 
aged poet, over whom already impended the shadow 
that shrouds the entrance to the next world, found 
his morning meditations guided by that work to the 
Founder of our reliefion. 



THE MERCANTILE LIBRARY. 



THE MERCANTILE LIBRARY. 

AN ADDRESS DELIVERED ON THE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY* 
OF THE FOUNDING OF THE NEW YORK MERCANTILE LI- 
BRARY, NOVEMBER 9, 1870. 

I esteem myself fortunate in being able to con- 
gratulate the Mercantile Library Association upon 
having arrived at its fiftieth anniversary. Forty-five 
years ago, v^hen I came to live in New York, it was 
in its early infancy. The public-spirited gentlemen 
by whom it was founded, I remember, expected much 
from it in the future. They hoped, and the hope was 
not vain, that it would greatly aid in forming the 
minds of the younger part of the mercantile class to 
liberal tastes and to generous views of their duty to 
their country and to mankind, and that it would be 
in some measure a safeguard against the temptations 
which beset young men in a populous city. Those 
who then sat by its cradle, if they survive, are now 
aged men ; those whose birth was coeval with its 
origin, are men of mature age, who have passed the 
zenith of life ; the books which were collected in its 
first years, to form the beginning of what is now a 
15* 



346 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

flourishing library, belong to the literature of a pas( 
generation. Yet, in founding this institution, the 
men of that day left a noble legacy to future times. 
While other institutions have risen and fallen, it has 
continued to grow and to extend its beneficial in- 
fluences with the growth of our city ; not, indeed, in 
the same proportion, but steadily and with a sure 
advance, till now its prosperity and duration seem 
almost beyond the reach of accident, I learn that 
there is no library in the country which increases so 
fast as that which belongs to this association, and 
that within the last ten years it has more than 
doubled the number of its volumes. If it proceeds 
at this rate it will eventually have a library which will 
command the admiration of the world and become 
the pride of our country. 

In the years yet to come, far in the depths of the 
future, the young men who search among the old 
books of the library will say to each other, " See with 
what reading our ancestors entertained themselves 
many centuries since, and how the language has 
changed since that time ! We can laugh yet at the 
humor of Irving, in spite of the antiquated diction. 
What a fiery spirit animates the quaint sentences of 
the old novelist Cooper ! In these verses of Longfel- 
low we still perceive the sweetness of the numbers 



THE MERCANTILE LIBRARY. 347 

and the pathos of the thoughts, and wonder not that 
the maidens of that distant age wept over the pages 
of EvangeHne. Here," they will add, "are the scien- 
tific works of that distant age. Clever men were 
these ancestors of ours ; diligent inquirers, fortunate 
discoverers of scientific truth, but how far in its at- 
tainment below the height which we have since 
reached ! " 

What I have just now imagined supposes our flour- 
ishing library ,to escape destruction by war and by 
casual fires. Ah, my friends, never may the fate of 
unhappy Strasburg be ours ! to lie for weeks under 
a hail storm of iron and a rain of fire, showered from 
the engines of destruction, which Milton properly 
makes the guilty invention of the sinning angels, and 
doomed to see her library, rich with the priceless 
treasures of past centuries, suddenly turned to ashes. 
But whatever may be the fate of our library, the as- 
sociation itself is not so easily destroyed. If the 
library perish, the same spirit which founded at 
first, will restore it so far as a restoration is possible. 
The association, I venture to predict, will subsist till 
this great mart of commerce shall be a mart no long- 
er ; till the mercantile class shall have disappeared 
from the spot where it stands, and New York shall 
have dwindled to a fishing; town. 



348 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

But will this ever be ? Will our great city share 
the fate of Tyre and Sidon, whose merchants were 
princes, and which are now but Arab villages, with 
a few caiques and here and their a felucca moored 
in their clear but shallow waters, choked with the 
ruins of palaces ? Will she become like Carthage, 
once mistress of flourishing colonies, but now a des- 
ert ; like Corinth, once the seat of a vast commerce — 
opulent, luxurious, magnificent Corinth — now a mere 
cluster of houses overlooked by a dismantled and 
mouldering citadel ? 

Or to come down to later times, will this city de- 
cay like Amsterdam, the mother of New York, and 
once the centre of the world's commerce ? Or like 
Genoa, surnamed the proud, and Venice, once the 
mistress of the Adriatic, cities which, after having 
successively wielded the commerce of the East, and 
made Italian the language of commerce in all the 
ports of the Levant, have long since ceased to hold a 
place among the great marts of the world ? 

I answer that none of these cities had the same 
firm and durable basis of commercial prosperity as 
our New York. It was their enterprise in opening 
channels of trade ; it was their conquests and colo- 
nies which gave them their temporary prosperity. 
They had no broad, well-peopled region around them, 



, THE MERCANTILE LIBRARY. 349 

under the same government with themselves, whose 
superabundant products it was their ofQce to ex- 
change with other countries. Their prosperity was 
built on narrow foundations, and it fell. Our circum- 
stances are different. Here is a republic of vast ex- 
tent, stretching from the sea which bathes the west- 
ern coast of Europe to that which washes the eastern 
shore of Asia — a region of fertile plains, rich valleys, 
noble forests, mountains big with mines, water-courses 
whose sands are gold, mighty rivers, railways going 
forth from our great cities to every point of the com- 
pass, and covering an immense territory with their 
intersections, and not a hinderance to commerce be- 
tween city and city or between sea and sea, or on our 
great rivers, or on the borders of the States forming 
our confederation. This mighty region, alive with 
an energetic population, is flanked with seaports 
through which the products sent by us to other coun- 
tries mitst pass, and through which the merchandise 
sent us in exchange imtst be received. They are 
therefore an indispensable part of our national econo- 
my. Their prosperity is necessary, inevitable, and 
will endure while our political organization remains 
as it now is. 

But if it should come to pass that this fortunate 
order of things is broken up, if this great republic 



350 ORATIONS AND ADDllESSES. 

should fall to pieces and become divided into a group 
of independent commonwealths, each animated by a 
narrow jealousy of the others ; and if an illiberal legis- 
lation should obstruct the channels of trade now so 
fortunately open over all our vast territory, there are 
none of our great marts of exchange for whose future 
prosperity I could answer. Some would fall into a 
slow decay, some pass into a rapid decline ; some 
would become like Ascalon on the coast of Palestine, 
once a harbor crowded with shipping, but when I* saw 
it, a desolate spot, where the sea-sand had drifted 
upon the foundations of temples and palaces, invaded 
the harvest fields, and moving before the wind had 
entered the olive groves and piled itself among them 
to the tops of the trees. 

Our security from such unhappy results will, in a 
good degree, lie in such institutions as this, and in 
other means of a like character, the object of which 
is to diffuse knowledge, to open men's eyes to their 
true interests, and accustom them to large and gen- 
erous views of the relation of communities to each 
other and to the world at large. For this reason let 
us hope for the permanent and .increasing prosperity 
of the Mercantile Library Association. 



ITALIAN UNITY. 



ITALIAN UNITY. 

AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE A MEETING IN NEW YORK, 
JANUARY, 1871. 

We are assembled, my friends, to celebrate a new 
and signal triumph of liberty and constitutional gov- 
ernment — not a victory obtained by one religious de- 
nomination over another, but the successful assertion 
of rights which are the natural inheritance of every 
man born into the world — rights of which no man 
can divest himself, and which no possible form 
of government should be allowed to deny its sub- 
jects. A great nation, the Italian nation, while yet 
acknowledging allegiance to the Latin church, has 
been moved to strike the fetters of civil and religious 
thraldom from the inhabitants of the most interesting 
city of the world, in the midst of their exulting accla- 
mations. We are assembled to re-echo those accla- 
mations. 

The government which has just been overthrown 
in Rome denied to those who had the misfortune to 
be its subjects, every one of the liberties which are 
the pride and glory of our own country — liberty of 



354 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

the press, liberty of speech, liberty of worship, lib- 
erty of assembling. It was an iron despotism which, 
to the scandal of the Christian church, insisted on 
persecution as a duty, set the example of persecution 
to other Catholic countries, and wherever it could 
make itself obeyed, maintained the obligation of re 
pressing heresy by the law of force. 

Take a single example of the manner in which 
the government was administered. An American 
lady, an acquaintance of mine, a resident in Rome for 
several years, was summoned one morning to appear 
before the police of that city. She went accompa- 
nied by the American Consul. 

" You are charged," said the police magistrate, 
" with having sent money to Florence, to be employed 
in founding a Protestant orphan asylum. What do 
you say .■• " 

"I did send money for that purpose," was the 
lady's answer. " I did not ask for it, it was brought to 
me by some ladies, who requested me to forward it 
to Florence, and I did so ; and I take the liberty to 
say that it is no affair of yours." 

" Of that you are not to judge," replied the mag- 
istrate. " See that you never repeat the offence." 

Such was the government which to the great joy 
of the Roman people and the satisfaction of the 



ITALIAN UNITY. 355 

friends of liberty everywhere, has been overthrown. 
Was it worthy — I put this question to this assembly — 
was such a government worthy to subsist even for an 
hour .■' 

And yet there are those who protest against this 
change — American citizens, and excellent people 
among them, who lend their names to a public remon- 
strance against admitting the people of Rome to the 
liberties which we enjoy. My friends, is there a sin- 
gle one of these liberties which is not as dear to you 
as the light of day and the free air of heaven .-* The 
liberty of public worship, would you give it up with- 
out a mortal struggle .'' The liberty of discussing 
openly, in conversation, or by means of the press, in 
books or in newspapers, every question which inter- 
ests the welfare of our race — a liberty of which the 
poor Romans were not allowed even the shadow — 
this and the liberty of assembling as we now assem- 
ble in vast throngs, thousands upon thousands, to give 
an expression of public opinion the significance of 
which cannot be mistaken — are not these as dear to 
you as the crimson current that warms your hearts, 
and are they not worthy to be defended at the risk 
of your lives } How is it then that any citizen of our 
own country, in the enjoyment of these blessings, and 
prizing them as he must, can protest against their be- 



356 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

ing conferred upon the Roman people — a people no- 
bly endowed by nature, and worthy of a better lot 
than the slavery they have endured for so many gen- 
erations ? 

What sort of Protestantism is this ? Protestantism 
in its worst form of misapplication. I should as soon 
think of protesting against the glorious light of the 
sun, of protesting against admitting the sweet air of 
the outer world into a dungeon full of noisome damps 
and stifling exhalations. I should as soon think of 
remonstrating with Providence against the return of 
spring with its verdure and flowers and promise of 
harvests, after a long and dreary winter. Is it pos- 
sible that those of our countrymen who lend their 
names to condemn this act of justice to the Roman 
people are aware of what they do .-' 

My friends, I respect profound religious convic- 
tions wherever I meet them. I honor a good life wher- 
ever I see it, and I find men of saintly lives in every 
religious denomination. But when I hear it affirmed 
that there is a natural alliance between despotism 
and Christianity ; that the necessary prop and support 
of religion is the law of force, and that the Christian 
church should be so organized that its head shall be 
an absolute temporal monarch, surrounded by a pop- 
ulation compelled to be his slaves, I must say to those 



ITALIAN UNITY. 357 

who make this assertion, whatever be their personal 
worth, that their doctrine dishonors Christianity, that 
it brings scandal upon religion, and blasphemes the 
holy and gracious memory of the Saviour of the world. 
It is now nearly two centuries and a half since 
Roger Williams established in Rhode Island a com- 
monwealth on the basis of strict religious equality. 
That was a little light shining upon the world from a 
distance, and slow has been the progress of the na- 
tions in taking that commonwealth for an example. 
Yet, though slow, the progress of religious liberty 
has been constant ; the day of its triumph has ar- 
rived ; to-night we celebrate its crowning conquest. 
It was but a little while since that Austria thrust out 
the priesthood from that partnership in the political 
power which it had held for centuries. It is not 
many years since that at Malaga, in Spain, when a 
heretic died, his corpse was conveyed to the sea 
beach, amid the hootings of the populace, and that 
the soil of Spain might not be polluted by his re- 
mains, it was buried in the sand at low-water mark, 
where the waves sometimes uncovered it and swept 
it out to sea to _ become the prey of sharks. Now, 
the heretic may erect a temple and pay worship in 
any part of Spain. Not long since there was no part 
of Italy in which any worship save that of the Latin 



358 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

church was permitted. Now, we owe to an eminent 
ItaHan statesman the glorious maxim, " A free 
church in a free state," and we behold the religious 
conscience set free from its fetters even in the Eter- 
nal city. With the aid of popular education it will 
remain so forever. 

When I think of these changes, I am reminded 
of that grand allegory in one of the Hebrew prophets, 
in which we read of a stone cut out of the quarry 
without hands smiting a gigantic image with a head 
of gold and legs of iron, and breaking it to pieces, 
which became like the chaff of the summer thresh- 
ing-floors, to be carried away by the wind, while the 
stone that smote the image grew to be a great 
mountain and filled the whole earth. Thus has the 
principle of religious liberty, a stone cut out of the 
quarry without hands — an inspiration of the Most 
High — smitten the grim tyranny that held the relig- 
ious conscience in subjection to the law of force and 
broken it into fragments, while it is rapidly expand- 
ing itself to fill the civilized world. Let us hope that 
the rubbish left by the demolition of this foul idol, 
made small as the chaff of the summer threshing- 
floors and dispersed by the breath of public opinion, 
may never be gathered up again and reconstituted 
even in the mildest form it ever wore, while the globe 
on which we tread shall endure. 



THE MORSE STATUE 



THE MORSE STATUE. 

ADDRESS DELIVERED ON THE UNVEILING OF THE STATUE 
OF SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE, JUNE lo, 1871. 

There are two lines in the poem of Dr. Johnson's 
on the Vanity of Human Wishes , which have passed 
into a proverb : 

" See nations slowly wise and meanly just, 
To buried merit raise the tardy bust." 

It is our good fortune to escape the censure im- 
pUed in these Hnes. We come together on the oc- 
casion of raising a statue, not to buried but to Uving 
merit — to a great discoverer who yet sits among us, a 
witness of honors which are but the first fruits of that 
ample harvest which his memory will gather in the 
long train of seasons yet to come. Yet we cannot 
congratulate ourselves on having set an example of 
alacrity in this manifestation of the public gratitude. 
If our illustrious friend, to whom we now gladly 
pay these honors, had not lived beyond the common 
age of man, we should have sorrowfully laid them on 
his grave. In what I am about to say I shall not at- 
tempt to relate the history of the Electric Telegraph, 
16 



362 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

or discuss the claims of our friend to be acknowl- 
edged as its inventor. I took up the other day one 
of the forty-six volumes of the great biographical dic- 
tionary compiled by French authors, and immediately 
after the name of Samuel Finley Breese Morse I 
read the words " inventor of the electric telegraph." I 
am satisfied with this ascription. It is made by a 
nation which, having no claims of its own to the in- 
vention, is naturally impartial. The words I have 
given may be taken as an expression of the deliberate 
judgment of the world, and I should regard it as a 
waste of your time and mine to occupy the few min- 
utes allotted to me in demonstrating its truth. As to 
the history of this invention, it is that of most great 
discoveries. Coldly and doubtingly received at first, 
its author compelled to struggle with difficulties, to 
encounter neglect, to contend with rivals, it has grad- 
ually gained the public favor till at length it is adopt- 
ed throughout the civilized world. 

It now lacks but a few years of half a century 
since I became acquainted with the man whom this 
invention has made so famous in all countries. He 
was then an artist, devoted to a profession in which 
he might have attained a high rank, had he not, for- 
tunately for his country and the world, left it for a 
pursuit in which he has risen to a more peculiar em- 



THE MORSE STATUE. 363 

inence. Even then, in the art of painting, his ten- 
dency to mechanical invention was conspicuous. His 
mind, as I remember, was strongly impelled to ana- 
lyze the processes of his art — to give them a certain 
scientific precision, to reduce them to fixed rules, to 
refer effects to clearly-defined causes, so as to put it 
in the power of the artist to produce them at pleas- 
ure and with certainty, instead of blindly groping for 
them, and, in the end, owing them to some happy 
accident, or some instinctive effort, of which he could 
give no account. The mind of Morse was an organ- 
izing mind. He showed this in a remarkable manner 
when he brought together the artists of New York, 
then a little band of mostly young men, whose pro- 
fession was far from being honored as it now is, rec- 
onciled the disagreements which he found existing 
among them, and founded an association, to be man- 
aged solely by themselves — the Academy of the 
Arts of Design — which has since grown to such 
noble dimensions, and which has given to the artists 
a consideration in the community far higher than was 
before conceded to them. This ingenuity in organ- 
ization, this power of combining the causes which 
produce given effects into a system, and making them 
act together to a common end, was not long after- 
ward to be exemplified in a very remarkable manner. 



364 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

The voyage made by Mr. Morse, from Havre to 
New York, on board the packet-ship Sully, in the year 
1832, marks an important era in the history of inven- 
tions. In a casual conversation with some of the pas- 
sengers concerning certain experiments which showed 
the identity of magnetism and electricity, the idea 
struck his mind that in a gentle and steady current of 
the electric fluid there was a source of regular, contin- 
ued and rapid motions, which might be applied to a 
machine for conveying messages from place to place, 
and inscribing them on a tablet at their place of des- 
tination. We can fancy the inventor, full of this 
thought, as he paced the deck of the Sully, or lay in 
his berth, revolving in his mind the mechanical con- 
trivances by which this was to be effected, until the 
whole process had taken a definite shape in his im- 
agination, and he saw before him all the countries 
of the civilized world intersected with lines of his 
electric wire, bearing messages to and fro with the 
speed of light. 

I have already said that this invention met with a 
tardy welcome. It was not till three years after this 
— thftt is to say, in 1835 — that Morse found means to 
demonstrate to the public its practicability by a tele- 
graph constructed on an economical scale, and set up 
at the New York University, which recorded mes- 



THE MORSE STATUE. 365 

sages at their place of destination. The public, how- 
ever, still seemed indifferent ; there was none of the 
loud applause, none of that enthusiastic reception 
which it now seems natural should attend the birth 
of so brilliant a discovery. The inventor, however, 
saw further than we all, and I think never lost cour- 
age. Yet I remember that some three or four years 
after this he said to me with some despondency : 
" Wheatstone in England, and Steinheil in Bavaria, 
who have their electric telegraphs, are afforded the 
means of bringing forward their methods, while to my 
invention, of earlier date than theirs, my comitry 
seems to show no favor." He persevered, however, 
and the doubts of those who hesitated were finally dis- 
pelled in 1844 by. the establishment of a telegraph on 
his plan between Washington and Baltimore. France 
and other countries on the European Continent soon 
adopted his invention and vied with each other in re- 
warding him with honors. The indifference of his 
countrymen, which he could not but acutely feel, gave 
place to pride in his growing fame, and to-day we ex- 
press our admiration for his genius and our gratitude 
for the benefit he has conferred upon the world by 
erecting this statue, which has just been unveiled to 
the public. 

It may be said, I know, that the civilized world is 



366 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

already full of memorials which speak the merit of 
our friend, and the grandeur and utility of his inven- 
tion. Every telegraphic station is such a memorial ; 
every message sent from one of these stations to an- 
other may be counted among the honors, paid to his 
name. Every telegraphic wire strung from post to 
post, as it hums in the wind, murmurs his eulogy. 
Every sheaf of wires laid down in the deep sea, oc- 
cupying the bottom of soundless abysses, to which 
human sight has never penetrated, and carrying the 
electric pulse, charged with the burden of human 
thought from continent to continent ; from the Old 
World to the New, is a testimonial to his greatness. 
Nor are these wanting in the solitudes of the land. 
Telegraphic lines crossing the breadth of our Conti- 
nent, climbing hills, descending into valleys, thread- 
ing mountain passes, silently proclaim the great dis- 
covery and its author to the uninhabited desert. 
Even now there are plans for putting a girdle of 
telegraphic stations around the globe, which in all 
probability will never be disused, and will convey a 
knowledge of his claims on the gratitude of mankind 
to millions who will never see the statue erected to- 
day. Thus the Latin inscription in the Church of 
St. Paul's, in London, referring to Sir Christopher 
Wren, its architect, " If you would behold his mon- 



THE MORSE STATUE. 367 

ument, look around you," may be applied in a far 
more comprehensive sense to our friend, since the 
great globe itself has become his monument. All 
this may be said and all this would be undeni- 
ably true, but our natural instincts are not thus 
satisfied. It is not the name of a benefactor merely, 
it is the person that we cherish, and we require, when- 
ever it is possible, the visible presentment of his face 
and form to aid us in keeping the idea of his worth 
before our minds. Who would willingly dispense 
with the image of Washington as we have it in painting 
and sculpture, and consent that it should be removed 
from the walls of our dwellings and from all public 
places, and that the calm countenance and majestic 
presence with which we associate so many virtues 
should disappear and be utterly and forever forgotten } 
Who will deny that by means of these resemblances of 
his person we are the more frequently reminded of 
the reverence we owe to his memory ? So in the 
present instance, we are not willing that our idea of 
Morse should be reduced to a mere abstraction. We 
are so constituted that we insist upon seeing the 
form of that brow beneath which an active, restless, 
creative brain devised the mechanism that was to 
subdue the most wayward of the elements to the 
service of man and make it his obedient messenger. 



368 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

We require to see the eye that glittered with a thou- 
sand lofty hopes, when the great discovery was made, 
and the lips that curled with a smile of triumph when 
it became certain that the lightning of the clouds 
would become tractable to the most delicate touch. 
We demand to see the hand which first strung the 
wire by whose means the slender currents of the 
electric fluid were taught the alphabet of every living 
language — the hand which pointed them to the spot 
where they were to inscribe and leave their messages. 
All this we have in the statue which has this day 
been unveiled to the eager gaze of the public, and in 
which the artist has so skilfully and faithfully fulfilled 
his task as to satisfy those who are the hardest to 
please, the most intimate friends of the original. But 
long may it be, my friends — very long — before any 
such resemblance of our illustrious friend shall be 
needed by those who have the advantage of his ac- 
quaintance, to refresh the image of his form and 
bearing as it exists in their minds. Long may we 
keep with us what is better than the statue — the 
noble original ; long may it remain among us in a 
healthful and serene old age ; late, very late, may 
He who gave the mind to which we owe the grand 
discovery to-day commemorated, recall it to His more^ 
immediate presence that it may be employed in a 
higher sphere and in a still more beneficial activity. 



SHAKSPEARE 



SH AKSPEARE. 

AN ADDRESS ON THE UNVEILING OF SHAKSPEARE'S STATUE 
IN THE CENTRAL PARK, MAY 23, 1872. 

We have come together, my friends, for the pur- 
pose of celebrating the erection of a statue to one of 
the most wonderful men that ever lived ; a genius 
great, far beyond all ordinary greatness, and destined 
to hold the admiration of mankind, through century 
after century, in the ages yet to come. 

In a part of this republic which, within a few 
years past, has been added to our Union, lying be- 
tween the Rocky Mountains and the western sea, are 
yet standing a few groves of a peculiar kind of tree, 
prodigious in height and bulk, and seemingly pro- 
duced by nature to show mankind to what size a tree 
can attain in a favorable soil and a congenial climate, 
with no enemy to lay the axe at its root. The earth, 
in its most fertile spots, in its oldest forests, and un- 
der its mildest skies, has nothing like them — no 
stems of such vast dimensions, no summits towering 
so high and casting their shadows so far, putting 
forth their new leaves and ripening their seed-vessels 



3/2 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

in the region of the clouds. The traveller who en- 
ters these mighty groves almost expects to see some 
huge son of Anak stalking in the broad alleys be- 
tween their gigantic trunks, or some mammoth or 
mastodon browsing on the lower branches. 

So it is with those great minds which the Maker 
of all sometimes sends upon the earth and among 
mankind, as if to show us of what vast enlargement 
the faculties of the human intellect are capable, if 
but rarely in this stage of our being, yet at least in 
that which follows the present life, when the imper- 
fections and infirmities of the material frame, which 
is now the dwelling of the spirit, shall neither clog 
its motions nor keep back its growth. Such a great 
mind was that of Shakspeare. An imagination so 
creative, a reason so vigorous, a wisdom so clear 
and comprehensive, taking views of life and character 
and duty so broad and just and true, a spirit so fiery 
and at the same time so gentle, such acuteness of 
observation and such power of presenting to other 
minds what is observed — such a combination of quali- 
ties seems to afford us, as we contemplate it, a 
glimpse of what, in certain respects, the immortal part 
of man shall be, when every cause that dims its vis- 
ion or weakens its energy or fetters its activity or 
checks its expansion shall be wholly ddng^ away, and 



SHAKSPEARE. 373 

that subtler essence shall be left to the full and free 
exercise of the powers with which God endowed it. 

It has occurred to me, in thinking what I should 
say at this time, that the writings of Shakspeare con- 
.tain proofs that if he had but given his attention to 
the work of preparing for usefulness and distinction 
in other pursuits than that in which he acquired his 
fame, he might have achieved in some of them a re- 
nown almost equal to that which attends his dra- 
matic writings. The dramatic poet who puts into the 
mouths of personages whom he would represent as 
great beyond the common stature of greatness words 
and sentiments corresponding to their exalted charac- 
ter, must, in order to do this, possess an intellectual 
character somewhat like theirs, must in some sort 
partake of their greatness. I wonder not, therefore, 
that some who have insisted that Shakspeare did not 
write the plays attributed to him should, in searching 
for the true author, have fixed upon Lord Bacon, 
finding in them passages which may be plausibly re- 
ferred to the father of modern philosophy and the 
most profound jurist of his age. I do not accept 
their theory, but I say to myself when I read what 
they have quoted from his writings in support of it : 
" What a giant among philosophers was lost in this 
dramatic poet ! what an able jurist and legislator 



374 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

allowed the faculties which would have made him 
such to slumber while he employed himself in writ- 
ing for the stage ! " 

So when I read the passages gathered from his 
plays to show that Shakspeare anticipated Harvey 
in his knowledge of the circulation of the blood in 
its channels through the animal frame, my reflection 
is that here was an embryo physiologist, endowed be- 
yond his fellow-men with an instinctive perception of 
the interior mechanism of the human body, and the 
power of detecting its subtle workings, hidden from 
man for so many ages from the birth of our spe- 
cies. Not the less, nay, perhaps still more remark- 
able, was the insight of Shakspeare into the dif- 
ferent, even the most subtle, forms of mental distem- 
perature, an insight shown in his portraiture of the 
madness of Hamlet, that of Ophelia and that of King 
Lear, all how distinctly drawn, yet each how diverse 
from the others ! What a physician might he not 
have made to an insane asylum ! How tenderly and 
how wisely might he not have ministered to the mind 
diseased — he who so shrewdly traced its wanderings 
and was so touched with a feeling of its infirmities ! 
How gently might he not have led it away from its 
illusions and guided it back to sanity ! 

Moreover, if Shakspeare had worn the clerical 



SHAKSPEARE. 375 

gown, what a preacher of righteousness he would 
have become, and how admirably and impressively 
he would have enforced the lessons of human life — he 
who put into the mouth of Cardinal Wolsey the pa- 
thetic words : 

" Had I but served my God with half the zeal - 
I served my king, he would not in mine age 
Have left me naked to mine enemies." 

I am sure that if those who deny to Shak'speare 
the credit of writing his own dramas had thought of 
ascribing them to the judicious Hooker or the pious 
Bishop Andrews, instead of Lord Bacon, they might 
have made a specious show of proof by carefully cull- 
ed extracts from his writings. Nay, if Jeremy Tay- 
lor, whose prose is so full of poetry, had not been 
born a generation too late, I would engage, in the 
same way, to put a plausible face on the theory that 
the plays of Shakspeare, except, perhaps, some pas- 
sages wickedly interpolated, were composed by the 
eloquent and devout author of Holy Living and 
Dyijig. 

The fame of our great dramatist fills the civilized 
world. Among the poets he is what the cataract of 
Niagara is among waterfalls. As those who cannot 
take the journey to Niagara that they may behold its 
vast breadth of green waters plunging from the lofty 



376 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

precipice into the abyss below, content themselves 
with such an idea of its majesty and beauty as they 
can obtain from a picture or an engraving, so those 
who cannot enjoy the writings of Shakspeare in the 
original English read him in translations, which have 
the effect of looking at a magnificent landscape 
through a morning mist. All languages have their 
versions of Shakspeare. The most eminent men of 
genius in Germany have been his translators or com- 
mentators. In France they began by sneering at him 
with Voltaire, and they end by regarding him in a 
transport of wonder with Taine. He stands before 
them like a mighty mountain, filling with its vastness 
half the heavens, its head in an eternally serene at- 
mosphere, while on its sides burrow the fox and the 
marmot, and tangled thickets obstruct the steps of the 
climber. The French critic, while amazed at the 
grandeur and variety of its forms, cannot, help suffer- 
ing his attention to wander to the ant-heaps and 
mole-holes scattered on its broad flanks. 

To the great chorus of admiration which rises 
from all civilized nations, we this day add our voices 
as we erect to the memory of Shakspeare, in a land 
distant from that of his birth, yet echoing through 
its vast extent with the accents of his mother-tongue, 
the effigy of his bodily form and features. Those who 



SHAKSPEARE. 377 

profess to read in the aspect of the individual the 
quaUties of his intellectual and moral character, have 
always delighted to trace in the face, of which we 
this day unveil an image to the public gaze, the man- 
ifest signs of his greatness. Read what Lavater 
wrote a hundred years since, and you shall see that 
he discovers in this noble countenance a promise of 
all that the critic finds in his writings. Come down 
to the phrenologists of the present day, and they 
tell you of the visible indications of his boundless 
invention, his universal sympathy, his lofty ideal- 
ism, his wit, his humor, his imagination, and every 
other faculty that conspired to produce his matchless 
works. 

This counterfeit presentment of the outward form 
of Shakspeare we offer to-day to the public of New- 
York as an ornament of the beautiful pleasure 
ground in which they take so just a pride. It has 
been cast in bronze, a material indestructible by time, 
in the hope that perchance it may last as long as his 
writings. It is nobly executed by the artist, and with 
a deep feeling of the greatness of his subject. One 
profound regret saddens this ceremony — that our 
friend Hackett, who was foremost in procuring this 
expression of our homage to the memory of Shak- 
speare, is not with us, but sleeps with the great 



378 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

author whose writings he loved and studied, and in- 
terpreted both to the ear and the eye. 

The spot in which this statue is placed will hence- 
forth be associated with numberless ideas and ima- 
ges called up to the mind of the visitor by the name 
of Shakspeare. To all whose imagination is easily 
kindled into activity it will seem forever haunted 
by the personages whom he created and who live 
in his dramas : the grave magician Prospero, and his 
simple-hearted daughter Miranda, and his dainty spir- 
it Ariel, the white-haired Lear, and the loving Cor- 
delia, the jealous Moor and the gentle Desdemona, 
Imogen and Rosalind, and the majestic shadow of 
Coriolanus. Before the solitary passer-by will rise 
the burly figure of the merry knight, Falstaff, and 
round about this statue will flit the slight forms of 
Slender and Shallow and Dogberry. To those who 
chance to tread these walks by moonlight, the ghost 
of the Royal Dane may shape itself from the vapors of 
the night and again disappear. But may the sound of 
battle never be heard here, nor the herbage be tram- 
pled by the rude heel of the populace in its fury to dis- 
turb the fairy court of Oberon and Titania, and scare 
the little people from their dances on the greensward. 

To memories and associations like these, we de- 
vote this spot from henceforth and for ever. 



REFORM 



REFORM. 

AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT A MEETING HELD IN THE 
COOPER INSTITUTE, SEPTEMBER 23, 1872. 

I am glad, my fellow-citizens, to see that this 
occasion has brought so many of you together. It is 
not for any narrow party purpose that we are assem- 
bled ; it is not that we may consult how to advance 
the interests of a popular favorite and his associates ; 
it is not to pull down his rival and the set of men by 
whom his rival is supported. It is by a higher and 
nobler motive that you are animated, one in which 
all honest men necessarily concur, the wish to secure 
to the State, and to all the smaller communities of 
which the State is made up, the benefits of a just, 
honest, economical, and in all respects, wise adminis- 
tration of public affairs. You could hardly come to- 
gether for a more worthy purpose. 

It seems an idle remark, because it is perfectly 
obvious, that the great mass of the people have no 
interest in being badly governed, but that on the 
contrary, their interest lies in committing their public 
affairs to men who will manage them honestly and 



382 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

frugally. It is the great mass who suffer when ra- 
pacious and knavish men obtain authority and power. 
The robbers are the few ; the robbed are the many. 
If the many would only come to a mutual under- 
standing and act together, the robbers would never 
obtain public office, or if by accident they obtained it, 
would be thrust out the first opportunity. In these 
matters concert of action is everything, and the 
rogues know it. As long as the opposition to their 
designs is divided into many little minorities, they 
laugh at it. High-handed villany takes its adversa- 
ries one after another, by the throat, and strangles 
them by detail. An army scattered is an army de- 
feated. It has passed into a proverb that in union 
there is strength ; it is just as true that in division 
there is weakness, and there are none who know this 
better than the knaves who enrich themselves by 
plundering the public. 

The material world abounds with instances of the 
power obtained by the combination of forces. I came 
a few days since from a rural neighborhood which a 
few weeks before had been visited by a shower of rain 
more copious and violent than any living person re- 
membered. In two hours the roads leading down the 
hills were ploughed by it into deep channels for the 
torrents, and rendered impassable ; bridges were swept 



REFORM. 383 

away ; huge stones were rolled down before the wa- 
ters ; and beds of soil, sand, gravel, pebbles and frag- 
ments of rock were borne along from field to field 
and found new owners. Yet this sudden flood was 
composed of single drops of rain, each one of which 
as it reached the earth had not force enough to dis- 
place the smallest pebble. It was combination, it was 
concert of action, it was organization that gave them 
their fearful power. The drops were gathered into 
rills, the rills into streams, the streams into torrents. 
By union they became terrible ; by union they were 
made irresistible, and all that man could do was to 
look on till their work was done. 

Just as irresistible and just as sure to accomplish 
their work will be the men whose interest it is that 
public affairs shall be frugally and wisely adminis- 
tered, if they can only be brought to combine with 
one purpose and one system of action. To promote 
this end we are assembled this evening. Let me not 
be told that if we keep one set of rogues out of office 
another will be sure to have their place. That is the 
moral of an old fable of ^sop, but the moral is a 
false one. You remember the ingenious parable : A 
fox among the reeds of a stream was tormented by 
gnats. A swallow, I think it was, saw his distress and 
offered to drive them away. " Do not," said the fox, 



384 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

"for if you drive these away a hungrier swarm will 
come in their place and drain my veins of their last 
drop of blood." But my friends, all that I infer from 
this fable is that official corruption is more than two 
thousand years old, at least. The lesson which this 
fable seems to inculcate — that they who plunder the 
public should not be molested in their guilty work — is 
absurd. There are in the community men whom you 
know to be absolutely honest, men of proved integ- 
rity, and all that you have to do is to agree upon such 
men as your candidates for office, and the public in- 
terest is safe. Let me relate for your encouragement 
what has already been done in this city. 

It was about forty years ago — when many who 
now do me the honor of listening to me were in their 
cradles, but I will not be certain as to the year — that 
the people of this city of New York were very much 
dissatisfied with their Common Council, which was 
then composed of a single board, the Aldermen. 
Some of the Aldermen had grown rich while in office. 
They knew sooner than other persons where new 
streets were to be laid out, and they purchased lands 
contiguous to those streets, which they afterwards 
sold at a large advance. One of the Aldermen 
owned a country seat at the northern extremity of the 
Third Avenue, and through his influence a great deal 



REFORM. 385 

of money was expended upon that thoroughfare, mak- 
ing it as hard as a rock, and so smooth and even 
that, as I heard a gentleman say at the time, there was 
not on its whole surface a hollow deep enough to 
hold a pint of water. These now seem small offences, 
which, compared with the crimes of Tweed and his 
set, almost whiten into perfect innocence ; yet the 
people of that day were discontented, and declared 
that they wanted men in office who thought only of 
the public good. So we all went to work and elect- 
ed a Common Council of honest men in spite of 
-^sop and his fable. Let me name some of them : 
There was Stephen Allen, the very impersonation 
of downright honesty. There was Myndert Van 
Schaick, wholly incorruptible and devoted to the 
public interest. There was Dr. McNevin too much 
taken up with science to think of making money. 
There was Dr. Augustine Smith-, who brought to the 
tasks of his office large knowledge and an integrity 
beyond question. There were other men in the Com- 
mon Council, worthy by their character to be the 
associates of these, and there was no complaint of 
corruption or malversation of any sort in our mu- 
nicipal affairs. We were all proud of our Com- 
mon Council. It was an honor to belong to such a 
body of men. I doubt whether the affairs of any 
17 



386 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

municipality since the time of the elder Cato have 
ever been administered by men so virtuous and intel- 
ligent as those to whom I have referred. It was 
only by slow gradations, and after many years, that 
our municipal affairs lapsed into that frightful state 
from which we are now seeking effectually to reclaim 
them. 

This, fellow-citizens, was what we did forty years 
ago, and something like this, if by the blessing of 
God we can act heartily and vigorously in concert, 
we may do now. 



SIR WALTER SCOTT. 



SIR WALTER SCOTT. 

ADDRESS ON THE UNVEILING OF THE STATUE OF SIR WAL- 
TER SCOTT, IN CENTRAL PARK, NOVEMBER 4, 1873. 

The Scottish residents of this city whose public 
spirit and reverence for genius have moved them to 
present to the people of New York the statue of their 
countryman which has just now been unveiled to the 
public gaze, have honored me with a request that I 
should so far take part in these ceremonies as to 
speak a few words concerning the great poet and 
novelist, of whose renown they are so j ustly proud. 

As I look round on this assembly I perceive few 
persons of my own age — few who can remember, as I 
can, the rising and setting of this brilliant luminary 
of modern literature. I well recollect the time when 
Scott, then thirty-four years of age, gave to the 
world his Lay of the Last Minstrel, the first of his 
works which awakened the enthusiastic admiration 
that afterwards attended all he wrote. In that poem 
the spirit of the old Scottish ballads — the most beau- 
tiful of their class — lived again. In it we had all their 
fire, their rapid narrative, their unlaboired graces, their 



390 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

pathos, animating a story to which he had given a 
certain epic breadth and unity. We read with scarce- 
ly less delight his poem of Marmion, and soon after- 
ward the youths and maidens of our country hung 
with rapture over the pages of his Lady of the Lake. 
I need not enumerate his other poems, but this I will 
say of them all, that no other metrical narratives in 
our language seem to me to possess an equal power 
of enchaining the attention of the reader, and carry- 
ing him on from incident to incident with such entire 
freedom from weariness. These works, printed in 
cheap editions, were dispersed all over our country ; 
they found their way to almost every fireside, and 
their popularity raised up both here and in Great Brit- 
ain a multitude of imitators now forgotten. 

This power over the mind of the reader was soon 
to be exemplified in a more remarkable manner, and 
when, at the age of forty-three, Scott gave to the 
world, without any indication of its authorship, his ro- 
mance of Waverley, all perceived that a new era in the 
literature of fiction had begun. " flere," they said, 
" is a genius of a new order. What wealth of ma- 
terials, what free mastery in moulding them into 
shape, what invention, humor, pathos, vivid portrait- 
ure of character — nothing overcharged or exagger- 
ated yet all distinct, spirited and life-like ! Are we 



SIR WALTER SCOTT. 39I 

not," they asked, "to have other works by the same 
hand ? " 

The desire thus expressed was soon gratified^. 
The expected romances came forth with a rapidity 
which amazed their readers. Some, it is true, ascribed 
them to Scott as the only man who could write them, 
" It cannot be," said others ; " Scott is occupied witi 
writing histories and poems, and editing work after 
work which require great labor and research ; he has 
no time for writing romances like these." So he went 
on, throwing off these remarkable works as if the writ- 
ing of them had been but a pastime, and fairly bom- 
barding the world with romances from his mysterious 
covert. It was like what in the neighborhood of this 
city we see on a fine evening of the Fourth of July, 
when rocket after rocket rises from the distant horizon 
and bursts in the air, throwing off to right and left jets 
of flame and fireballs of every brilliant hue, yet whose 
are the hands that launch them we know not. So we 
read and wondered and lost ourselves in conjectures 
as to the author who ministered to our delight, and 
when at length, at a public dinner in the year 1827, 
Scott avowed himself to be the sole author of the 
Waverley Novels, the interest which we felt at this 
disclosure was hardly less than that with which we 
heard of the issue of the great battle of Waterloo. 



392 ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 

I have seen a design by some artist in which 
Scott is shown siirrounded by the personages whom 
in his poems and romances he called into being. 
They formed a vast crowd, face beyond face, each 
with its characteristic expression — a multitude so 
great that it reminded me of the throng — the cloud 
I may call it — of cherubim which in certain pictures 
on the walls of European churches surround the Vir- 
gin Mother. For forty years has Scott lain in his 
grave, and now his countrymen place in this park an 
image of the noble brow, so fortunately copied by the 
artist, beneath which the personages of his imagi- 
nation grew into being. Shall we say grew, as if 
they sprang up spontaneously in his mind, like plants 
from a fruitful soil, while his fingers guided the pen 
that noted down their words and recorded their 
acts } Or should we imagine the faculties of his mind 
to have busied themselves at his bidding in the cham- 
bers of that active brain, and gradually to have 
moulded the characters of his wonderful fictions to 
their perfect form ? At all events, let us say that He 
who breathed the breath of life into the frame of 
which a copy is before us, imparted with that breath 
a portion of his own creative power. 

And now as the statue of Scott is set up in this 
beautiful park, which^ a few years since, possessed no 



SIR WALTER SCOTT. 393 

human associations, historical or poetic, connected 
with its shades, its lawns, its rocks, and its waters, 
these grounds become peopled with new memories. 
Henceforth the silent earth at this spot will be elo- 
quent of old traditions, the airs that stir the branches 
of the trees will whisper of feats of chivalry to the 
visitor. All that vast crowd of ideal personages crea- 
ted by the imagination of Scott will enter with his 
sculptured effigy and remain — Fergus and Flora Mac- 
Ivor, Meg Merrilies and Dirk Hatteraik, the Anti- 
quary and his Sister, and Edie Ochiltree, Rob Roy 
and Helen Macgregor, and Baillie Jarvie and Dandie 
Dinmont, and Diana Vernon and Old Mortality — 
but the night would be upon us before I could go 
through the muster roll of this great army. They 
will pass in endless procession around the statue of 
him in whose prolific brain they had their birth, until 
the language which we speak shall perish, and the 
spot on which we stand shall be again a woodland 
wilderness. 



THE END 



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